At the news briefing held by the Ministry of Education a few days ago, Lv Yugang, deputy director of the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Education, said that by the end of 2008, according to the data reported by various places, there were 3 1. 1.00 million substitute teachers in public primary and secondary schools nationwide, and the Ministry of Education strictly prohibited the recruitment of new substitute teachers. Compensation should be given to the dismissed replacement personnel. At the same time, with the improvement of the local security system, we should actively study and try to solve their practical difficulties by incorporating urban and rural social security and rural cooperative medical care. Xu Mei, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education, also said that "the Ministry of Education has not set a deadline" to solve the problem of in-service substitute teachers.

The position of the head of the Ministry of Education seems to be full of "humanistic care" for substitute teachers, as well as compensation and "active research" on the inclusion of urban and rural social security, and it has not been retired within a time limit. However, several hundred yuan and several thousand yuan are also "compensation". Recently, the compensation scheme for returned students in some places is that a substitute teacher compensates several hundred yuan 1000 yuan a year. The total compensation for a substitute teacher for 20 years is only 20 thousand yuan. If there is a college student at home, it is not enough for two years' study and living expenses. It is not within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education to actively study and strive to include social security. To put it simply, we didn't do our job well, but drew a big cake to satisfy our hunger.

The author pays more attention to the other two sentences said by the person in charge of the Ministry of Education-"Long-term use of substitute teachers who are not qualified as teachers has harmed the legitimate rights and interests of students. On the other hand, it is extremely unfair to use substitute teachers with teacher qualifications for a long time at low wages, and qualified personnel cannot enter the formal teaching team. " Since the education department attaches great importance to the legitimate rights and interests of students and the fairness and justice of recruiting teachers, we might as well really start from the legitimate rights and interests of students and the fair rights and interests of teachers to solve the problem of substitute teachers.

At present, the basic way for local governments to solve the problem of substitute teachers is that some of them pass the "substitute-to-public" examination, and the rest are transferred or retired. In areas that do well, there are more places to "transfer from generation to generation", and the government keeps its word. Anyone who has passed the examination and obtained the teacher qualification certificate can be transferred to the public; In areas where contradictions are concentrated, there are very few places where "teachers are replaced by public servants". Local governments often "acquiesce", pass exams, have teacher qualification certificates, do not handle the procedures for transferring public servants, and even exclude old substitute teachers and recruit new substitute teachers.

As can be seen from the above practices, there are two major defects in solving the problem of substitute teachers. First, solving the problem of substitute teachers is completely dominated by local education departments, and substitute teachers and their students (and parents of students) have almost no right to speak, that is to say, the legitimate rights and interests of students are not respected at all, regardless of the protection of their own rights and interests; Secondly, there are enough people everywhere to accept qualified substitute teachers to switch to public service (otherwise, it is difficult to understand why there are substitute teachers). The reason why there are staff who don't make up for it and staff who make up for teachers is only because local governments are unwilling to pay their salaries in full, but they want to treat teachers as cheap labor and save investment in education. In other words, substitute teachers are actually mostly qualified teachers, just being "substituted", so equal pay for equal work is different. This attitude towards teachers is the greatest harm to teachers' rights and interests.

Whether the substitute teacher hurts the legitimate rights and interests of students depends on the students and their parents. In normal primary and secondary schools, there should be parents' committees, which are important institutions involved in school decision-making, supervision and evaluation. In some rural areas of China, substitute teachers with extremely low wages are an important force to ensure compulsory education. Without their efforts, it will be more difficult to guarantee the legitimate rights of students to receive education. According to statistics, in 2005, there were about 448,000 substitute teachers in primary and secondary schools nationwide, of which about 300,000 were distributed in rural public primary and secondary schools, accounting for 5.9% of the total number of teachers in rural public primary and secondary schools. We can see that in some rural areas, substitute teachers have been ruthlessly retired, and parents of students are indignant; When those ignorant students watched their dear teacher leave in tears, they were full of sadness. What kind of education will these students treat their teachers in this way, regardless of the feelings of the educated?

In solving the problem of substitute teachers, if we fully listen to the opinions of the parents' Committee, perhaps parents can give a fair judgment and make the solution more perfect. For example, teachers who substitute for more than 20 years will automatically become public teachers; Substitute teacher 10 to 20 years with teacher qualification certificate and become a public teacher; Substitute teachers 10 years to take the "substitute to public" exam, etc. This is responsible for history and reality. In fact, if the parents' committee participated in the decision-making and supervision of running a school, the legitimate rights and interests of the educated would not have been ignored all the time, and the substitute teachers would not have developed to such a large scale.

The problems existing in compulsory education in China include insufficient government investment, serious school balance, blind withdrawal and merger of schools, etc. All because of the lack of a system that truly protects the legitimate rights and interests of the educated. Education investment, school setting and teacher management are all "conscious" by the government. Under the environment of poor supervision, some local government departments have become arbitrary. The person in charge of the Ministry of Education said that in order to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of students, a school-running mechanism should be established to effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of students and educators in education management. We might as well take retired substitute teachers as the beginning to explore this school-running mechanism.