Chinese National Education Department opposes "teaching at home"

Moves by Zhejiang Province to make teaching students at home legal has stirred up controversy with the Chinese National Education Department.

Teachers commonly take extra classes with students for extra money, but the department is opposed to a new initiative to make it legal.

The department does not want teachers to take advantage of students to make profits for themselves through this kind of teaching, a department spokesman said.

Recently, the government of Zhejiang Province proposed a legal bill to allow this teaching mode, which makes this controversial topic even heater in the society.

Student

Li, a student is continuously taking extra English classes twice every week at present, each lasting for two hours and costs 50 Yuan (5 pounds).

The class is held in the teacher’s house, and is made up of two sessions, review and exercise.

“She finds specific ways to solve my problem, my study has been visibly improved,” says Li, “She deserves the pay due to the useful knowledge she offers in her spare time.”

Teacher

Mr. Zhou is an experienced maths teacher in a senior high school doing "home teaching" for nearly 10 years.

As he is popular, he takes it every other day, and around five students every time. So the income is really considerable.

“Some people say harsh words behind my back,” says Mr. Zhou.

He thinks he is treated unjustly. He doesn’t influence school teaching, and he has to do more research on diverse exercises based on every individual student coming to him.

“There is all hard-earned money, but receives all criticism,” Mr. Zhou says.

Bureau of Education

A director in the local Bureau of Education says that the proposed legal bill is still under deliberation.

Before that, the bureau has several prohibitions on school teachers, for example, teachers cannot use this kind of home teaching on the students from his teaching class, and asks the public to contain it in general.

No demand, no supply. Without students' or parents' needs, there will not emerge such a popular market.

If the state really want to forbid this type of teaching, perhaps raising teachers' salary is a better idea.

Plane crash in Lutin Airport

At least 200 people were killed, and 127 were injured in the jet crash at Luton Airport yesterday.

The accident investigators are on the scene looking for the wreckage.

But the number of missing people is still unfixed.

“We are trying hard to contact the relatives”, said Roberts, chief executive of Luton Airport.

According to the police, the airport is shut, and everyone stay away to make medical emergency get through, as well as some roads.

Susan Wright, living nearby the airport said:” It looked like the undercarriage was only half way down, it landed with huge crash and spark flow out everywhere…It hardly believe anyone could survive.”

The airport spokesman, Paul Hayes said the plane contacted the airport to see if there were having difficulties at 3:17.

“A short time later, it is landing heavily. It overshot the runway and burst into flames,” said him.

It is a utopian airway Bowing 747 with 320 passengers, and nine crew from South Africa.

Pregnant women from mainland swarm in Hongkong private hospitals

According to MSN News, Hongkong Hospital Authority decides to freeze reservation service for non-local pregnant women in public hospitals recently, which results in a crowd in private hospitals.

More and more pregnant women, especially those in Guangdong Province are going to have babies in Hongkong.

I think the most significant reason is because there is a better social security system in Hongkong that can ensure one's basic living, even he/she could not fnd a job.

Besides, the employment pressure is fairly big in mainland China owing to a huge population, hence, it might be relatively easier to find a job in Hongkong.

Last but not least, there are more opportunities to get to know the foreign world as there are more and quicker ways to transfer information from abroad.

New legislation to allow family education with compensation is planned

Family education with compensation has been quite popular among Chinese society in recent years, through which students pay for school teachers beyond their school time on different subjects.

It is always a hot topic in public whether school teachers could have this family education with compensation.

Recently, Zhejiang Province intended to make a new legislation to allow this kind of family education, which became the focus of attention (Xinhua News).

Although in traditional culture, Chinese always think it is the primary responsibility for teachers to teach their knowledge to the students, while there is nothing to do with the money.

Since nowadays, many school teachers put earning more money as the primary goal they are aiming for, people find it really disappointing.

Personally speaking, whether those school teachers want to make money or not, the most important thing is that if they can teach students well beyond the school time, I think he/she deserves the pay due to the useful knowledge they give and their working overtime.

A militia woman in Chinese parade becomes controversial

According to Xinhua News this morning, recently, Zhang Yuanyuan, who took part in the parade on Chinese National Day (1^st October) as a member of a militia became a controversial figure in Singapore.

Her emotional words "Beijing is my real home, my biggest wish is to serve my country" under the identity of 'Singapore permanent resident' made people in Singapore feel uncomfortable.

The media, as well as the public expressed their mistrust to the immigrants definitely.

Frankly speaking, I think there is no need for Singapore people to worry about the immigrants' loyalty, at least Zhang Yuanyuan is not the case.

Being a permanent resident is different from being a citizen of Singapore.

Both of China and Singapore do not admit dual nationality.

Hence, although Zhang is the permanent resident, she is still the citizen of China. As a result, what is wrong with her words?

Furthermore, I always think people like Zhang could be a good transmitter between two countries, sharing cultures, changing ideas, and promoting the development in various fields.

Apply for civil servants in China, hot as before

Today is the 3rd day for applying for state's civil servants in China this year, and people still get an extremely high passion for it.

It was indicated by 163 News that in general, one position attracting over 100 entrants was quite common, among which the hottest position was the customs officers in Xiamen, 2859 entrants would compete for 4 positions.

Applying for civil servants in China has always been hot, especially in recent years.

I think there are mainly two reasons for people to go for it.

First of all, working at the government or some related organizations is always regarded as something worth being proud of.

Those people always have the power to make a change of the society.

Even for those freshers, they have a great opportunity to promote to a higher position, the chairman could be taken into account as well.

Secondly, generally speaking, the job is easy and comfortable for most civil servants in China while with a high salary, at least, the salary is usually above the average much in the society.

Besides, the time for work is always fixed except for some overtime, and there is no need for people to worry about the 'fire thing' unless you are found that having made a big mistake.

North Korea diplomat is going to visit US

It was indicated by BBC News this evening that Ri Gun, a senior diplomat in North Korea, as well as the one taking part in the talks on his country's nuclear programme, is going to visit US soon.

Although his speicfic schedule has not been clarified through mass media, the 'US visit' plan is fixed.

I think it is a good sign towards the relation between North Korea and the US.

As North Korea was busy testing some missiles and nuclear programmes before that defied UN, and the six-party talks did not go well, the relation between North Korea and the US was already intense.

However, after Clinton took two American journalists that were jailed in North Korea back to the US, personally speaking, it began to ease tension.

Furthermore, the North Korea diplomat is allowed to visit US now and might discuss with some related officials over the nuclear matters.

I think it is a big step for both two countries. More close attention should be paid to this visit.

London travel fares gonna increase AGAIN

According to BBC News this morning, the travel fares in London including both tube and bus are going to increase again, in 2010.

In my point of view, although it has been one year after the economic crisis in 2008, UK's economy is still in recession, the recovery is so slow as well as weak.

However, the travel fares, which is one of the most significant and relavant thing to Londoners keeps raising, is it fair?

Besides, there are always several tube lines closed on weekends, which affects people's outgoing a lot.

There's no good service, but people still have to pay more for their travel fees.

I can't unerstand, and I can't see any rational reasons to make this kind of decision as well.

Royal Mail

Post strikes will start next week.

As Royal Mail plays such a significant role in British people's lives, it will definitely affect people's ordinary life much.

I had my own experience of that.

I went to the bank last Friday to deal with the account thing, and I was offered two ways to get my card.

The bank agreed with me very much to pick the card by myself rather than the post due to the strike news.

It is really inconvenient, isn't it? Can't there be other alternative ways to figure it out?

2009 Nobel peace prize goes to Barack Obama

The first time I got the message from my friend, I thought she was kidding. I couldn't believe it until I checked several news websites.

I discussed with many of my friends, and the responses were almost the same--the news was pretty surprising and unimagined.

Since it had been a controversial topic, there were both supporters and opponents.

Frankly speaking, I really couldn't understand this decision by the Nobel Committee, who regarded Obama as the one made "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples".

It is strange.

His presidential term was less than one year.

He decided to send more troops to Afghanistan several days ago.

The problem with either North Korea and Iran was still unsolved, or reached a stalemate, in other words.

He proposed "a world without nuclear weapons", and hoped that people in the world could have a peaceful environment, however, without any effective results, at least, not now.

Hence, why did Nobel Committee give a prestigious award to a person who hasn't got any effective results yet but only with good wishes and just started his plan at this moment?

Is it a kind of encouragement?

If it is, why isn't this rule suitable for other Nobel Prizes?

It is really confusing.