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Barefoot Teachersin Gulang County, Gansu

by Albert Hu

To change the world, one village at a time!

What are the barefoot teachers?

Most barefoot teachers are hired by primary schools in rural area, without a formal employment relationship with schools or government. Thus, the common characteristics of these teachers includes low pay, low social status, no health care, and no welfare or social security at all.

Barefoot teachers in Gulang

Gulang is a poor county of Gansu, with a population of over 400,000. There are currently more than 500 barefoot teachers in Gulang, earning 200 yuan per month. Most of them are working for the elementary schools in mountainous area.

After a brief introduction to the region of Gulang, I will introduce several of the barefoot teachers I visited.

Titles:

Where is Gulang?

Barefoot Teacher #1 Yan Taishan

Barefoot Teacher #2 Wang Zhenglong

Barefoot Teacher #3 Wang Changlu

Barefoot Teacher #4 Li Yulan

Barefoot Teachers #5 Wang Yongping and Zhu Yanling

Barefoot Teachers #6 Xu Yibin and Li Ziping

Merits of barefoot teachers in Gulang

Good academic background: at least a high school degree, some even have a junior college degree

Most of them have at least 20 years of teaching experience

Not so easily replaced for two reasons:

Their school is just too distant, like teacher Wang Chenglu
Some of them are very good teachers with excellent performance records.

Maybe they are not best teachers in the world, but they don't deserve this. 200 yuan a month is simply too little. Their poverty is obvious, considering the expenditure of supporting one high school student is about 4,000 yuan annually. If the students only eats steamed bread and water, it still costs more than 3,000 yuan. These cost estimates are based on the two children of the first teacher mentioned, Yan Taishan.

These barefoot teachers graduated from high school which is an excellent achievement in rural China in 1980s. It may be too late for them to drastically change their career paths, however, we could help them change their children's lives, making supporting them a little bit easier.

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