Teachers from impoverished counties begin two-week course in Beijing

Nearly 400 middle school teachers from 19 poverty-stricken counties are attending a two-week training session in Beijing to improve their teaching skills.

The training session, organized by the China Association of Poverty Alleviation and Development and the University of International Business and Economics, opened on Monday.

Teachers from UIBE, Renmin University of China, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Capital Normal University and Beijing No 4 High School will give lectures to the teachers on Chinese language, mathematics, English, physics and chemistry.

Teachers from Communication University of China will also give Mandarin instruction to teachers from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

After the training session, teachers will receive online training for one year to further improve their skills.

In February, the Ministry of Education issued a guideline aimed at ensuring that, by 2020, no child in China is prevented from attending school because of poverty. The target will be achieved by allocating more educational resources to poverty-stricken areas.

New educational funds, programs and policies will support places where extreme poverty persists — including the Tibet autonomous region, parts of Xinjiang and the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu — to help lift educational standards dramatically in rural China by 2020, the ministry said.

The country will record each child’s educational situation in the areas as the basis for targeted poverty alleviation through financial input and policy support, the guideline said. Each county in such areas should also keep records on educational resource shortages, including facilities and teachers.