Some 172 senior teachers in Shayang county, Central China's Hubei province, have been made temporarily redundant and re-employed as full-time security guards by schools because of the continuous decrease in the number of school-age children. They can get their jobs back when more students are enrolled, local education officials said. Comments:

Re-employing senior teachers as security guards is not only a considerable waste of qualified teachers, but also a heavy financial burden on the local government. The "quitting mechanism" is designed to optimize and improve the free flow of teachers, not cutting loose senior teachers without any consideration for their great contributions to the elementary education system. Their legal interests have to be protected, too.

Beijing News, Sept 23

More than 170 Shayang teachers being forced to leave their posts and take an unwanted job instead should be a wake-up call to the Ministry of Education that something is wrong with the national educational system. This is not to say a teacher enjoys a higher social status than a security guard, but the government employment mechanism should be able to bring the best out of them to serve the people.

Zhujiang Evening News, Sept 23

The teachers should have been given the option to choose a profession instead of being re-employed as security guards. Those with higher qualifications and still relatively young should be allowed to teach other subjects, or even work in other professions after receiving proper training. The older teachers could either retire or take up some administrative jobs.

Beijing Times, Sept 23

Optimizing the allocation of teachers and teaching resources requires a scientific selection system to keep those most experienced in certain subjects, and re-employ the rest.

Dahe Daily, Sept 23