Short-Term Volunteer Teaching in Contemporary Rural China : A Case Study on College Students' Volunteer Teaching Program of a University in Henan Province

Abstract: Currently, facing the fierce competition in the global marketplace, China has made remarkable economic achievements and become an important role in the international economy. However, economic discrepancy between rural and urban China is widening and it also leads to educational inequality. Rural eudcation in China is still confronted with the problems of funding shortage, teacher shortage, inferior teacher quality, unbalanced teacher allocation etc. To resolve these issues, the Chinese government has organized a large-scale college students' volunteer teaching program to support rural education. Nevertheless, as more and more college students get involved with the volunteer teaching program, the results are haphazard. This study was designed to investigate the short-term volunteer teaching program of rural China in Henan Province and to review the volunteer teaching in the international context. It indicates that more attention should be paid to the role and effectiveness of short-term volunteer teaching.it is hoped that this study could bring some implications to the further study on this topic.