Suburban schools in Shanghai, which are widely thought to be inferior to those in the downtown area and are therefore less popular, used to face serious staff recruitment challenges because of low salaries.
But many schools say the situation has been improving in recent years as educational authorities have been trying entice teachers with better pay and the cost of living in the downtown area has soared, making the suburbs more attractive.
Many suburban schools were unrepresented at a job fair for teachers yesterday because they have already recruited enough teachers.
"Fewer suburban schools than in the past attended this spring. They reported that they have almost finished this year's recruitment," said Zhu Hongmei, vice director of the Shanghai Educational Human Resource Exchange and Service Center, the organizer of the fair.
The center organizes two job fairs a year exclusively for teacher recruitment — one in October and one in March. Most recruitment is centered on the October fair, Zhu said. Only schools that failed to fill all their positions in October show up for the March fair.
Schools in outer suburbs like Jinshan, Jiading, Qingpu, Fengxian and Baoshan used to take the majority of the booths at the job fairs as they got the short end of the stick where teacher recruitment was concerned. They were considered inferior to downtown schools, offering lower pay and dimmer career prospects.
But yesterday only one third of the 400 booths were booked by suburban schools, and no schools in Jinshan District made an appearance.
One of the schools that didn't attend the fair was Xilin Middle School in Jinshan.
Vice Principal Wang Wenhui said the school had already achieved its target to recruit six teachers this year. The school, established in 2005 with 20 classes and 67 teachers, now has 45 classes and 150 teachers.
"Jinshan is one of the least developed districts in Shanghai," Wang said. "Public transport to here used to be inconvenient, and our salaries were not competitive with downtown schools. So we were treated as the choice of last resort. Many applicants changed their minds before signing contracts, so we needed to look for new ones until the end of school year."
One of the few advantages a school like Xilin had to offer was employment that did not require a teacher to have hukou, or a Shanghai residence permit, he said.
That edge cut both ways.
"Some teachers left us and headed for downtown schools once they got hukou and enough teaching experience," Wang said. "We were just a staging area."
Shanghai has about 155,900 teachers citywide. That compares with 142,900 teachers in 2009, when the municipal government reformed the salary system, greatly reducing the gap between downtown and suburban schools. Now all salaries must be approved by the district governments, with richer areas not allowed to add too much cream to the top.
"We used to go to universities both inside and outside Shanghai to solicit applicants, but now we don't have to do that or rely on job fairs," Wang said. "Applicants seek us out."
Salaries aside, soaring living costs in downtown districts have also made outlying areas more attractive.
"In Jinshan, houses sell for about 10,000 yuan ($1,545) per square meter, compared with 10 times that in the city center," Wang said.
Yu Mengru, a music teacher at Xilin, said she finds living in Jinshan less stressful than in downtown areas. She got a job at the school in 2011 after graduating from university.
"I'm from Jiangxi Province and was not eligible to apply for work in downtown schools because I didn't have a Shanghai hukou," she told Shanghai Daily. "But after working here all these years, I have come to like Jinshan. I may earn a bit less than I would in a downtown school, but my lifestyle is more relaxing and my living costs cheaper."
In fact, she's thinking of settling permanently in Jinshan, where she also gives music lessons.
"It's not as backward as some people think," she said. "I am often invited by local organizations to give musical performances, and parents are willing to pay for extra artistic training for their children."
Wang said the hemorrhage of teachers has been largely staunched in the last three years and Xilin has already successfully recruited six teachers this year to handle the vacancies left by retired teachers and the need for expanding one more class for six graders in fall.
"No teacher has left our school to go to a school downtown," he said. "We have lost only one or two teachers due to family reasons."
Other outlying districts report a similar change of fortune.
In Minhang, which is closer to downtown than Jinshan but still used to be considered the back of beyond, the district has been recruiting hundreds of teachers every year as more schools open to handle a rapidly increasing population.
"We have the luxury now of being able to pick from high-quality applicants, rather than having to be picked by them," said Yu Anmin, an education researcher and former principal of Minhang High School. "The establishment of new schools, including extension campuses of prestigious schools from the city center, has helped."
Some suburban districts offer graduates from top universities living allowances and housing subsidies to sweeten teacher recruitment.
Baoshan, for example, gives a 2,000 yuan per month housing subsidy for teachers from out-of-town.
Wang said the current situation is a plus for Shanghai's overall quality of education.
"Teachers can now devote their attention to teaching and not to looking for better jobs," he said.
