About 150 teachers from rural areas in Gansu, Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan and Inner Mongolia will visit Shanghai in July to learn modern teaching methods and ideas, a charity program dedicated to improving rural education said at the weekend.
The teachers will be trained on new education ideas, school management concepts and national development. Each teacher will stay with a volunteer family and visit schools, communities, charity organizations and companies to see all aspects of urban life.
Another 30 teachers from local schools for migrant children will take part in the program, said organizers of the I Fly Training Rural Teachers program.
The program was first launched in Beijing in 2007 by Cui Yongyuan, a former anchor at CCTV, when he realized the education situation in rural areas was so poor that even teachers there had never been on an airplane.
The program was introduced in Shanghai in 2010 with East China Normal University and some local media. In the past five years, 667 rural teachers from 374 schools in 10 provinces and autonomous regions had been invited to Shanghai to experience urban life and undergo training.
The program is believed to have benefited some 200,000 students.
