Challenges in Teacher Allocation in Small-Scale Rural Schools and Strategies for Alleviating Them in the Context of High-Quality and Balanced Education

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the ongoing promotion of high-quality and balanced development in compulsory education, small-scale rural schools serve as vital institutions for ensuring that rural children can attend school locally and for upholding equity in basic education; consequently, the state of their teacher allocation directly impacts the realisation of these objectives. At present, teacher allocation in small-scale rural schools faces practical challenges such as a disconnect between approved staffing quotas and actual needs, shortages of teachers in in-demand subjects, high staff turnover, and insufficient training support, which in turn constrain the provision of courses, teaching quality and school development. The underlying causes lie primarily in the segmentation of the urban-rural labour market, insufficient compensatory incentives, inadequate county-level coordination, and high coordination costs. To resolve these challenges, comprehensive measures must be implemented across supply mechanisms, incentive mechanisms, coordination mechanisms and support mechanisms, thereby shifting the allocation of teaching staff in small-scale rural schools from merely ‘filling numerical gaps’ to ‘optimising quality’.