Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, president of the People's Republic of China, and chairman of the Central Military Commission, on Wednesday replied to a letter from students of the Beijing Normal University (BNU) who are participating in a teacher training program.

In his letter, Xi placed great expectations on the students, congratulated the faculty, students and alumni of the university on the occasion of its 120th anniversary, and extended greetings to teachers across the country ahead of the upcoming 38th Teachers’ Day in China, which falls on September 10.

“Over the past year since you were enrolled in the program, through course study and offering teaching service in underdeveloped regions, you have enriched your knowledge, broadened your horizon and hardened the conviction of going down to serve at the grassroots. I am very glad to learn that,” he said in the replying letter.

Xi noted that Beijing Normal University is the earliest modern teacher-training institution of higher learning in China and has cultivated a great number of outstanding teachers for the country. “I hope that you will carry forward the university's motto ‘Learn, so as to instruct others; act, to serve as example to all,’ waste no time and study hard, cultivate your moral character and improve your capabilities of teaching students both knowledge and the way of leading a rewarding life.”

“I also hope that you will serve in places where the country and people need you the most after graduation, and work hard to become a qualified teacher with firm ideals and beliefs, moral sentiments, solid knowledge and benevolence so as to commit yourselves to nurturing a new generation of capable young people with moral grounding, intellectual ability, physical vigor, aesthetic sensibility and work skills for the socialist cause.”

China launched a targeted program to train outstanding teachers for underdeveloped areas in its central and western regions in 2021. Under the targeted training mode operated by normal universities directly under the administration of the Ministry of Education and normal colleges at localities, the program is tasked with training about 10,000 teachers each year for primary and secondary schools in 832 counties that either have just shaken off poverty or are located in land border areas in relevant regions.

Recently, BNU student representatives in the program wrote a letter to Xi, in which they shared what they had learned since their enrollment in the program and expressed their resolution to teach at the grassroots after graduation.