China Turns to Retired Teachers to Narrow the Education Gap Between Cities and Rural Areas

7,000 retired teachers for schools that need experience

China is recruiting 7,000 retired teachers aged 65 or under this year to work in county towns and rural schools, drawing on experienced educators to improve lessons and train younger colleagues. The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance say the Silver Age Teaching Programme will direct that experience toward places where schools struggle to attract and keep staff.

Li Ming, a law professor aged 64, illustrates how the wider effort also reaches universities. While many of his peers were settling into retirement, he left Beijing for Tumxuk, a small city in western Xinjiang. He has taught local students and trained six teaching assistants who have since become lecturers.

The programme connects two needs: schools and universities seeking experienced teachers, and retired educators who still want to work. Its aim is to improve classroom quality, support younger staff and make access to strong teaching less dependent on where a child lives.

Officials have signaled that recruitment will continue in 2025, with implementation handled at county level. Priority locations include areas lifted out of poverty, counties with large ethnic minority populations, old revolutionary base areas, border counties and divisions of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

Assignments range from classroom teaching and curriculum design to school management and individual mentoring. At frontier universities, retired professors have helped establish new majors and academic teams. In rural primary and junior secondary schools, veteran teachers help maintain the range of subjects taught, coach colleagues beginning their careers and demonstrate effective lesson routines.

Experienced educators can provide continuity while schools build more lasting staffing arrangements. A veteran teacher may teach students directly while helping several younger colleagues develop skills they can continue using after the placement ends.

How recruitment and service work

The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance jointly set the programme's framework. The Ministry of Education circular lays out the 2024 action plan and arrangements for 2025, including county implementation targets, selection rules, funding arrangements and recruitment timelines.

Candidates include retired principals, pedagogical researchers, senior teachers and core teachers. Pedagogical researchers study teaching methods, while core teachers are experienced staff who can guide colleagues in their subjects. Participants are generally required to be aged 65 or under, in good health and able to demonstrate strong professional records.

Local education bureaus match candidates with schools according to need. The standard service period is at least one academic year. Teachers retain their existing personnel status and retirement benefits during their assignments.

Recipient schools are located in counties, towns and villages. Provinces can add posts in other areas where education is lagging. Age rules vary by assignment: most posts generally have a ceiling of 65, while some universities accept older specialists for limited duties.

The programme developed in stages:

• 2018: Silver Age work began in primary and secondary schools.
• 2020: The effort expanded to universities.
• 2024: The ministries' circular sets out an action plan for county implementation.
• 2025: The circular includes further arrangements, and officials have signaled continued recruitment.

Since the school programme began in 2018 and university placements followed in 2020, more than 20,000 retired schoolteachers and around 1,000 retired professors have taken posts in less developed areas. Participation has grown from initial pilot groups into a sizable network.

What teachers do beyond taking a class

County authorities and host schools shape assignments around each educator's strengths. Retired teachers can serve as vice principals, teach regular classes, observe and evaluate lessons, conduct open and demonstration classes, organize seminars and lead workshops.

Open classes allow colleagues to watch a lesson and discuss how it was taught. Lesson studies bring teachers together to examine planning and classroom practice. Both give younger staff concrete examples they can adapt to their own students.

Many participants are paired individually with new hires. This coaching helps build local professional learning communities, groups of teachers who share problems, compare approaches and improve lessons together. Veteran educators also contribute to curriculum design and school governance.

Experienced administrators can establish routines for preparing lessons, observing classrooms and assessing students. Those routines can remain in place after the retired teacher leaves, giving a school a more consistent way to support staff and track learning.

Rural primary and junior secondary schools use these placements to stabilize subject provision and everyday teaching. County high schools draw on veteran teachers in difficult subjects where shortages are particularly acute, including physics, chemistry and English.

Some guidance and training can be delivered online when travel is difficult. That allows scarce subject expertise to reach more teachers, although the programme also relies on extended placements that give participants time to understand a school's needs.

What support makes a placement possible?

For compulsory education posts, the work allowance is set at 20,000 yuan per person per year and funded jointly by central and local governments. Compulsory education covers the school years children are required to attend. The allowance covers work subsidies, travel and accident insurance.

Host counties are expected to provide accommodation with basic facilities. The official notice specifies allowances, insurance and housing support, while participants continue receiving their pensions without changes to their retirement benefits.

The financial arrangement helps explain why the programme appeals to counties with limited resources. Retirees receive a stipend rather than a full salary package because they already have pensions. This keeps participation affordable for schools seeking experienced support.

Officials stress that mentoring funded through an allowance must sit alongside steady investment in regular staffing. Schools still need teachers with lasting positions, dependable subject teams and the ability to support students throughout their education.

Housing, travel support and insurance ease the burden of moving, but an assignment still requires stamina. Teachers may face long journeys, a dry climate or high altitude, as well as the strain of living away from family for a school year or longer.

Why educators choose a second classroom

Retired teachers join for different reasons, but service and professional identity recur in their accounts. Many want to continue teaching and helping schools grow. Some welcome the chance to visit parts of China they previously knew only from maps. Others want to pass on the mentoring they received when they were young.

Xu Shuangmin retired from Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in Wuhan before joining the Karamay campus of China University of Petroleum Beijing as a volunteer teacher. She had rarely traveled far from home. The move took her to a different city and climate, and to a young campus still developing majors and recruiting staff.

Xu extended her stay after her first year. Reflecting on three years in Karamay, she described how teaching had also become a source of personal learning:

I initially came to Karamay with the goal of educating students, but over the past three years, I have come to realize that I, too, am learning and growing.

Sun Xudong, previously an English teacher at the petroleum university's Beijing campus, helped build the English major in Karamay from zero. He drafted teaching syllabi, established a translation discipline and managed recruitment and training for graduate students.

Sun explained his motivation in terms of what students might achieve:

I hope to contribute my efforts to the education here and help more students realize their dreams.

In smaller schools, the potential contribution can be immediate. An experienced mathematics or language teacher can steady teaching across an entire grade and give confidence to colleagues in a staff that changes frequently.

Other participants continue despite personal difficulties. Chen Xiaohe, a finance professor aged 70, kept teaching despite mobility challenges and chose to stay through winter and summer to prepare materials and support students. His experience also reflects the different age arrangements available for some university specialists.

Why teacher quality matters to the rural gap

Schools in big cities have more experienced teachers, more specialist staff and better access to training. Rural and county schools often face frequent staff turnover, fewer subject experts and limited help with lesson planning.

Children can feel those differences early. Reading fluency by third grade and readiness for algebra in junior high depend on steady instruction. Gaps can accumulate later in high school, where advanced coursework requires consistent preparation and stable teaching teams.

Scott Rozelle, co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions and its Rural Education Action Program, has studied education and rural development in China for years. He identifies teacher quality as a central difference between city and rural schooling:

One of the biggest differences between urban education and rural education is the quality of the teachers.

Rozelle also connects educational attainment with China's ability to sustain economic growth. Human capital means the knowledge and skills people bring to work. He described his concern about how much formal education the workforce has received:

When one looks at the share of the labour force that has been to high school, one worries that China's human capital is not enough to keep it growing on a rapid path for the next several decades.

Educational attainment has improved steadily over the past two decades, yet the share of China's workforce with a full high school education still trails richer economies. That affects productivity, the amount workers can produce, and social mobility, people's ability to improve their circumstances.

The Silver Age effort is one tool for improving schools serving many rural and migrant children. Broader changes in funding, staffing and curriculum remain part of that work. Retired teachers contribute by teaching current students while developing the skills of staff who will teach future classes.

How local schools keep the benefits

County education bureaus say some of the most durable gains occur when retired teachers concentrate on building teams. Open classes, lesson studies and practical coaching raise the confidence of colleagues beginning their careers.

Schools also report closer coordination within subject groups. When teachers agree on lesson preparation and assessment, a class is less likely to experience a sharp change in teaching quality if someone transfers or takes leave.

Li Ming's work in Tumxuk shows how a placement can increase a university's teaching capacity. Alongside teaching law, he trained six teaching assistants who became lecturers. His contribution therefore extends beyond the students in his own classroom.

University departments in frontier cities often lack enough scholars in the middle stages of their careers to form strong academic teams. Retired professors help by developing syllabi with colleagues, advising academic programmes and establishing review routines younger faculty can continue.

Karamay provides another example. When the petroleum university's campus began recruiting English majors, much of the programme had to be created from the ground up. Retired teachers from Beijing designed the teaching plan, set assessment standards and demonstrated instruction that new hires could follow.

Building a major involves more than adding a course to a timetable. The work described in Karamay included deciding what students would study, how their progress would be assessed and how teachers would deliver the programme. Sun's work on translation and graduate training added further academic capacity.

These placements can help a young institution develop while local staff gain experience. The lasting value lies in both the lessons students receive and the teaching practices colleagues carry forward.

Remote assignments bring practical pressures

Teachers working in minority areas may encounter language and cultural differences that affect how quickly they connect with students. Curriculum expectations also change, and digital tools can require refresher training even for highly experienced educators.

County bureaus try to match assignments to each participant's skills. Programme managers encourage open classes and teaching together with local colleagues so schools retain useful practices when a veteran educator finishes a placement.

Falling student numbers create another scheduling challenge. In some rural townships and parts of the northeast, posts sometimes shift during the school year. Moving an assignment can disrupt the time needed for mentoring relationships to develop.

School leaders must balance avoiding surplus staff with ensuring every class has a consistent teacher. The Silver Age programme seeks to stabilize quality during these transitions by directing experience to schools that need it.

Careful scheduling matters because mentoring takes time. A standard placement of at least one academic year gives teachers an opportunity to observe colleagues, work through classroom difficulties and help establish routines before leaving.

Keeping support from replacing stable jobs

Education researchers caution against relying too heavily on retirees to fill regular teaching posts. The programme is designed to support local teams, while schools continue developing their own permanent workforce.

Young graduates face a tight job market. Counties that depend too heavily on teachers posted from elsewhere can delay creating stable entry positions, frustrating people who want a lasting career in education.

Programme managers identify clear role design as a safeguard. Retired teachers teach and advise, with an expectation that they begin strengthening local teams from the start of their assignments.

County authorities also assess participants' work. Contracts can be ended when obligations are not met or health conditions make continued service unsafe. Clear assessment criteria, shared lesson planning and open classes help keep attention on student learning.

The balance involves cost as well as staffing. A pension supplemented by an allowance makes a retired educator's placement affordable, but counties still need continuing investment in full time teachers. Mentoring is most useful when younger colleagues have stable posts in which to apply what they learn.

An aging population offers a pool of experience

China's demographic changes give the programme a wider setting. The number of people aged 60 and above is expected to exceed 300 million by 2025. Retirement ages are comparatively low by international standards, leaving many educators able and eager to work after their formal careers end.

Surveys suggest a large share of retirees want to remain active. At the same time, the education system faces a wave of retirements and uneven staffing patterns. Silver Age placements connect some of that available experience with students who might otherwise lack access to seasoned teachers.

The programme also fits within China's broader focus on the silver economy, economic activity involving older people. Seniors participate as mentors, trainers and community volunteers as well as consumers of services.

In some regions, senior volunteer initiatives in health and education operate alongside the teaching programme. They provide experienced professionals for brief projects and seasonal needs. Policymakers see value in connecting these efforts so county schools can obtain subject specialists, health educators and counselors at key stages of the school year.

For many retired educators, the attraction remains personal: continuing to teach, sharing years of practice and watching younger colleagues grow into their roles. For schools, the lasting benefit depends on turning that experience into stronger local teaching teams.

What to Know

• China is recruiting 7,000 retired teachers this year for county and rural schools, with continued placements signaled for 2025.
• Most candidates are aged 65 or under, and standard service lasts at least one academic year.
• Priority areas include counties lifted out of poverty, minority counties, border areas and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps divisions.
• Compulsory education placements carry an annual allowance of 20,000 yuan, with accommodation and insurance support.
• More than 20,000 retired schoolteachers and around 1,000 retired professors have served in less developed areas since the programme's respective launches in 2018 and 2020.
• Participants teach, mentor younger staff, help manage schools and support the development of university majors.
• Li Ming trained six teaching assistants in Tumxuk who became lecturers, while retired teachers helped establish English teaching in Karamay.
• Programme managers focus on building local capacity alongside continuing investment in stable teaching jobs.