Jack Ma to invest $45 million in selecting teachers for rural areas

Alibaba's CEO Jack Ma is planning to invest at least 300 million yuan (about 45 million U.S. dollars) in 10 years in selecting excellent graduates to serve as rural teachers, thepaper.cn has reported, citing a rural graduates program set up by the Jack Ma Foundation.

A screenshot shows Jack Ma introducing the rural teaching graduate program in a video released on December 11, 2017. [Photo: Jack Ma Foundation]

Jack Ma, who calls himself "the spokesperson for rural teachers," claimed that the more prominent rural teachers are, the stronger rural education will be. "Aging teaching staff and outdated knowledge structure are the fundamental problems leading to poor rural education. We might find a breakthrough in China's educational reform by starting with rural education so as to further alleviate education-related poverty," added Jack Ma.

The first phase of the program, expected to launch on January 21, 2018, will sign 100 new university graduates with teaching degrees by applying targeted recruitment from provincial-level normal universities and a joint selection mechanism. Hunan First Normal University, Sichuan Normal University, Chongqing Normal University and Jilin Normal University are among the first batch of schools.

Jack Ma gives a speech at the "Ma Yun Rural Teachers Prize" on January 6, 2017 in Sanya, Hainan province. [Photo: VCG]

Students who stand out from capability model matching via big data will acquire three to six months of pedagogical practice, during which a two-way selection and evaluation will be simultaneously conducted. Those with outstanding performances will be included on a final list.

Yu Xiuhong, Executive Secretary General of the Jack Ma Foundation, noted they are looking for students with a sense of educational mission, strong capability, leadership and a cooperative spirit.

Jack Ma's rural teaching graduates program comes as the Chinese Ministry of Education has set a goal of optimizing the structure of teaching staff and resources in rural areas.

This is Jack Ma's third rural education program after his rural teachers program and rural headmasters program.