Abstract:

Clearly understanding rural teachers’ turnover intention and its influencing factors is the prerequisite for retaining rural teachers. According to a survey of 5,342 rural teachers in Yunnan province, about 30% of them “always have” the willingness to move, which is 5.7% higher than that in 2016. The rural teachers with a teaching experience of “3-5 years” demonstrate the strongest intention to move, indicating that teachers who have joined in recent years are still “unable to retain”. The most important factors affecting rural teachers’ turnover intention are “allowing children to enjoy better educational resources” and “taking care of family members”, while salary, office and housing conditions are significantly lower in the list of factors. The influence of “school management and teacher evaluation” is further highlighted. Combined with field investigations, it is found that the cultural and psychological characteristics of rural teachers caused by the urban-rural dichotomy, the lack of improvement in the welfare of rural teachers under the “county-based” rural compulsory education funding guarantee mechanism, the lack of a stable teacher supply mechanism for rural education, and the failure of the educational management system in township, etc., are the deep-seated factors that influence the willingness of rural teachers’ turnover intention. This study thus suggests that to stabilize the rural teaching force, it is necessary to plan and develop rural education in the process of rural revitalization and rebuild the ecology of rural education. It is also necessary to enhance the continuous improvement mechanism of rural teachers’ welfare, establish a long-term supplementary mechanism for rural teachers, improve the management system of rural education, and stimulate the vitality of rural school operation.

Key words: rural teachers, rural teachers’ turnover intention, influencing factors