State Council plans to move Teachers' Day to Confucius' birthday

The State Council has released a public consultation paper about moving Teachers' Day to September 28 to coincide with the birthday of Confucius.

Educators and parents supporting the move hope aligning the day with the nation's greatest scholar will add pride and credibility to a profession battered in recent years by sexual assault claims and corruption.

"This will help to remind teachers that we should always set an exemplary model for pupils at school and observe virtuous ethics like Confucius did over 2,000 years ago," said Wang Huamin from the China Preschool Education Association in Beijing. "It's time that we should return to our cultural heritage and restore the ethics we have lost over the years."

Last week, the Ministry of Education said teachers in elementary and high schools would no longer have their licences for life, and would instead have to renew them every five years.

The government is also discussing a new circular, which says teachers who betray their professional ethics, such as by giving after-class lessons for money, taking gifts from parents or physically abuse pupils will be severely punished.

The mainland media has reported on dozens of cases of child sex abuse since May, when a principal and government official in Wanning , Hainan , were convicted of taking Primary Six girls to hotel rooms for sex. Public anger was further galvanised when it emerged that at least seven schoolgirls were molested and given sexually transmitted diseases by their teacher in Jiangxi province.