Linyi high-tech zone upgrades education workforce through cadre development

The Linyi High-tech Zone in Linyi, East China's Shandong province, has been building a cadre team marked by professional knowledge, professional thinking and professional capability across its education system, part of the citywide campaign to improve officials' conduct and competence.

Recruitment is the first link. The zone runs a multi-channel mechanism combining campus hiring, government-funded normal-school graduates and high-level talent introduction, bringing in 28 education professionals over the past year, with staffing resources prioritized for high schools to support continuous enrollment expansion. School leadership teams undergo regular assessment, and a dynamic reserve pool of principal candidates focuses on strong department heads around 40 years old.

Training follows. A digital-leadership program for school principals, three consecutive principals' forums and a four-tier growth platform — new teachers, young elites, district-level backbone teachers, and noted teachers at provincial and municipal level — have produced results: one ideological-political course case was selected as a national model, and three teachers and three education workers received municipal commendation.

Management keeps the system clean. Party secretaries lead campaigns against school-level bottlenecks; regular warning education and integrity talks were held with 11 officials; and a four-stage teacher-ethics framework running through the year covers pledges, discipline education, a special rectification of paid tutoring, and selection of role models.

Deployment releases vitality. Leadership posts at 25 schools and kindergartens were adjusted or rotated, lowering the average age of school-level cadres from 48 to 46 and raising the share of those under 45 to 37 percent. A cross-stage teacher exchange scheme — with equal pay, separate quotas for awards and titles, mutual recognition of honors, flexible scheduling and school placement for children — moved 110 teachers to where they were most needed. Care programs rounded out the effort: psychological training covered more than 500 teachers and staff, and 40 financially struggling teachers received assistance.

Editor：韩蒙蒙