Wang Bo, a farmer-turned photographer, who moved the Chinese
audience by a series of 24 photo exhibitions on rural school
drop-outs (1990-2004), wanted to do it again. This time, by a photo
exhibition on teachers in the rural areas of China.
The exhibition, held at Beijing Library on June 19-25, displays
Wang's 150 photos? recording the hard, poor living and working
conditions of the primary and middle school teachers in the remote
rural areas of central and western China.
The individuals in the photos all belong to a group of so-called
"substitute teachers" -- teachers who are not on the government's
regular payroll. Most of them make less than one hundred yuan RMB
(some US$12) per month and some of them have big families to
support.
"From November 2005 to last April, I went deep into the
mountains and villages in seven provinces across the nation and
visited over one thousand rural teachers, wrote down their stories
and took pictures of them. Most of them are substitute teachers,"
Wang said.
"I'm totally shocked by their conditions. When I began to take
photos and record the stories of rural drop-outs over ten years
ago, I had much contact with them and I knew they were poor," Wang
added.?
"But how poor and what kind of difficulties are they facing? I
didn't know," he admitted.
"This time I can tell through what I've seen and experienced,
the difficulties these substitute teachers are facing are the real
problems of our rural education," he sighed.
Due to lack of government-paid regular teachers, for years
"substitute teachers" have made up the majority of teaching staff
and accomplished a huge amount of assignments in many of the areas
of China. They number tens of thousands.
However, their work is not supposed to be paid by the
government. When compared with the problem of rural drop-out kids,
their hardship is often to be neglected when people talk about
China's rural education system.
They are more than often over-worked, yet they are unfortunately
among the poorest in the villages. "The only thing keeping them in
their career is their strong sense of responsibility to the rural
kids," Wang stressed.
"I know there are many difficulties. But I want to try. I hope
through my vivid representation of them, the society can get to
know these teachers and offer their help," he said.
Wang's photo exhibitions on rural drop-outs over more than ten
years have helped raise the necessary funds to return over 12,000
of them to schools. So this time, Wang hoped the? exhibition
would also finish the task to help these dedicated yet desperate
adults.
Good news to all,? education in rural areas of China has
already caught more attention of the central government. It
announced in March that 218 billion yuan RMB (US$27.25 billion)
will be allocated to help improve the shools in the rural areas in
five years. At the same time, it said a mechanism has already been
established to ensure the incomes of the teachers in the rural
areas.?
(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2006)
