Actively Responding to New Changes in School-Age Population

In 2024, at the "Promoting High-Quality Development" series of themed press conferences, Vice Minister of Education Wang Guangyan stated that in compulsory education, the scale of primary school enrollment peaked in 2023, while the junior high school-age population continues to grow.

According to data from the "National Education Development Statistical Bulletin" released by the Ministry of Education, in 2024, primary school enrollment nationwide was 16.1663 million, a decrease of 2.6125 million compared to the previous year. Junior high school enrollment nationwide was 18.4875 million, an increase of 941,200 compared to the previous year.

Can primary school teachers be competent for junior high school positions? Chu Zhaohui said this is a question that requires operational assessment to answer. In other words, whether a specific primary school teacher can teach junior high school effectively depends on the teacher's actual situation. Therefore, implementing this policy requires annual evaluations. After the annual evaluation, those who perform well can continue, while those who do not should be adjusted promptly.

Tang Zhisong, a professor at the Faculty of Education of Southwest University, stated in a media interview that it depends on the teacher's teaching ability and educational background. Some teachers graduated from primary education programs and may find it difficult to adapt to junior high school teaching; others have a secondary education background and qualifications and can become competent after training. After transferring, some teachers may not be able to continue teaching their original subjects. If the subject跨度 (span) is large and highly specialized, and the teacher lacks relevant background, caution should be exercised when transferring. Additionally, training and evaluation standards related to teacher transfers need improvement.

On March 28 this year, Hangzhou's Fuyang District held the opening ceremony for the first "Cross-Segment" Teaching Reserve Teacher Training Program. This training program aims to help 50 local young backbone teachers with secondary school teaching qualifications and 2-3 years of teaching experience in primary school segments to enhance their junior high school teaching capabilities, ultimately becoming versatile teachers who can "teach both up and down."

According to media reports, Chen Zhiwen, a member of the Academic Committee of the China Education Development Strategy Society, stated that under the new demographic situation, primary, junior high, and high school teachers will experience wave-like "surplus" and "shortage" issues, compounded by urban-rural differences due to rural-urban mobility. Considering that "adding is easy, subtracting is difficult" in the process of building the teaching workforce, reallocating existing teacher resources—such as selecting a portion of primary school teachers to fill junior high school teaching shortages, and in the future, selecting a portion of junior high school teachers to fill high school gaps—is a relatively feasible approach.