Hundreds of private and substitute teachers from Shanxi Province in China collectively visited the office of the Central Inspection Team of the Chinese Communist Party during their stay in Shanxi from May 6th to 8th, demanding authorities to address issues regarding pension and medical care.
These teachers, who come from various regions of Shanxi Province and have been engaged in rural education for two to three decades, are mostly in their senior years. However, their basic pension and medical care problems have never been adequately resolved. Despite persistently petitioning for nearly two decades, the results have been minimal. Recently, they initiated another round of rights protection actions.
According to a video released by teachers participating in the rights protection activities on May 6th, 7th, and 8th, representatives of private and substitute pre-school teachers from different cities in Shanxi wore small red hats while lining up in long queues at the location to await reception by the inspection team.
In an interview with Epoch Times on May 8th, a private teacher named Chen Yuan (pseudonym) from Shanxi Province stated that she has been working in private education for over thirty years. Her salary started at 105 yuan, gradually increasing to 600 or 700 yuan, and now stands at 1,800 yuan. However, apart from the salary increase, they receive no other benefits, and all medical expenses are out-of-pocket.
“I just want to know how much subsidy the state provides for private teachers,” Chen Yuan said.
A teacher participating in the rights protection activities shared through video texts some of the real situations presented to the inspection team by the teachers petitioning.
On May 7th, the Central Inspection Team received representatives of Shanxi teachers. A representative of Shanxi private teachers entered the provincial government offices with 23 pay slips and yellowed employment certificates from 1983 showing that public school teachers received a monthly salary of 48 yuan, while private teachers received only 9.6 yuan.
Liu Shengping, a 66-year-old teacher from Lüliang County in Shanxi, presented the total sum of his 23 years of teaching salary: 13,070 yuan. After deducting the 9,000 yuan “grease money” deducted at the grassroots level, his actual income was 4,070 yuan, averaging less than 50 cents per day.
As per video texts, during the verification process, the inspection team discovered that a rural town’s high school teacher staffing table indicated 12 on duty, but only 8 teachers were actually teaching. Upon investigation, it was found that 4 of them had never set foot in a classroom since 2000 but continued to receive monthly salaries. This phenomenon was particularly prevalent during the transition of private teachers to public teachers in the 1990s. Records from a county education bureau in 1997 showed that among the 120 people who were regularized that year, 23 had faked their educational backgrounds or teaching experience.
Regarding the outcome of the petitioning, the video did not provide any information.
Many teachers who did not attend the scene also left comments in the comment section demanding solutions to the lack of pension and medical care.
One teacher commented: “When we were in the prime of our lives, we worked tirelessly, only to receive meager salaries. We hoped to be regularized. Now that we are aging, we lack medical care and insurance. The authorities are ungrateful and neglectful.”
Chen Yuan told Epoch Times that whether it is former or current private teachers, they have made significant contributions to the education sector. “It is very reasonable for private teachers to request more subsidies now. We have done our work really well, not even a little bad,” she said.
According to teachers’ introductions, private teachers are an important force in China’s primary and secondary school teams and rural “universal nine-year” education under specific historical conditions in China, with a massive number present throughout the country. Since the day they were ruthlessly dismissed, there has been a stark contrast in treatment between them and public school teachers.
Back in 2017, Chinese private and substitute teachers initiated large-scale rights protection actions. Despite being suppressed and intimidated by the authorities, many teachers continue to persist in their rights protection efforts.
The rights protection actions in Shanxi have garnered nationwide support. Private and substitute pre-school teachers from Beijing, Henan, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, and other regions have left messages of support, saying, “The whole nation supports you!” and “Rights violations never cease, keep fighting, teachers!” @