Beijing's education authorities issued a guideline, warning that 11 types of misconduct among university teachers, including plagiarism, damaging national interests and security and disseminating false and harmful information may affect their performance, and could even cost their job.
The guideline was issued by the Beijing Municipal Education Commission (BMEC) on Tuesday for the capital's university teachers.
Misconduct involves pursuing irrelevant things at work, such as playing the stock market and engaging in online business, taking bribes from students, spreading wrong and false information, having an inappropriate relationship with students, revealing national secrets and endangering national security and authority of the Communist Party of China.
Depending on the seriousness of the offense, the penalties range from suspension, cancelling award and job promotion, to removal as a teacher.
The guideline also aims to better protect students, since words and deeds that exclude or discriminate against students, insult and sexually harass students are also among the misconduct that will be severely punished.
Experts said that it provides the foundation for teachers to regulate their behaviors, since cases of teacher's misconduct have been frequently reported in recent years.
Chen Xiaowu, a former professor from Beihang University in Beijing, was disqualified as a master supervisor and teacher in January, 2018.
February this year, the Beijing Film Academy removed Chen Yi as doctoral supervisor for overlooking the plagiarized dissertation of his student, Zhai Tianlin.
Ren Jianming, a professor at Beihang University in Beijing, noted the necessity of keeping the purity of university teachers, who guide young talent and are the nation's backbone.
"Teachers cultivate people. Therefore, they need a higher professional ethical standard. Our government and educational institutions should pay more attention to teacher's professional ethics," Ren said, noting the problem is also about the future of our nation.
Although most teachers are respected and disciplined, the misconduct of a few always brings shame to the whole group and society, analysts said.
