Ministry of Education: Prohibit forced participation of teachers and students in activities unrelated to education and teaching, resist excessive interference of non-educational affairs.

Recently, the Ministry of Education issued a notice on "Several Measures to Further Reduce the Non-Educational Teaching Burden of Primary and Middle School Teachers". The head of the Teacher Work Department of the Ministry of Education answered questions from reporters on related issues. The notice focuses on the key links and prominent issues of reducing the non-educational teaching burden of teachers, and proposes a series of targeted and operational specific measures, which can be summarized in three aspects. First, strict control of external intervention. Define the boundaries between schools and teachers with rigid constraints, strictly prohibit mandatory participation of teachers and students in activities unrelated to education and teaching, and resist excessive interference of non-educational affairs. Establish an audit and list system to filter out irrelevant tasks from the source through the review mechanism for documents related to schools and teachers, the "white list" for social affairs entering campuses, and the list of inspection, inspection, evaluation, and assessment items. Prohibit the shifting and disguised distribution of burdens to teachers at the grassroots level, clarify and regulate various burdens related to teachers' confusion, such as teachers' duty during holidays, social exam invigilation, activities outside the campus, social research, teacher training, etc., strictly control the borrowing and use of teachers, and ensure that teachers engage in their main responsibilities. Second, optimize internal governance. Focus on the internal governance of the education system, empower teachers through technology and standardized processes. Promote data sharing and platform integration, upgrade the national teacher management information system, promote "one-network management" and "grassroots database access", achieve data collection once and shared by multiple parties, and vigorously rectify the problems of repeated reporting and multiple reporting. Strictly manage government applications for teachers, regularly clean up government apps related to teachers, strictly prohibit mandatory clock-in, points ranking, etc., and eliminate "formalism at fingertips". Improve after-school service guarantees, strictly prohibit arbitrary expansion of scope, ensure reasonable treatment of teachers' after-school services, clearly prohibit hard linkages with teacher title evaluation, outstanding performance evaluation, etc., and safeguard teachers' legitimate rights and interests. Third, strengthen supervision and accountability. Implement the main responsibilities, improve the monitoring and verification mechanism for reducing teachers' burden, strengthen multi-departmental collaborative governance, discover and deal with violations together, and maintain a high-pressure situation for reducing teachers' burden. Establish a three-dimensional monitoring network, incorporate burden reduction into supervision, evaluation, responsibility inspector, and network inspection, establish monitoring points and monitoring team, and encourage third-party participation. Smooth channels for feedback on problems, establish provincial, municipal, and county-level supervision and reporting platforms, strengthen "complaints handled immediately" and closed-loop management of problem rectification, issue supervision and accountability orders and talk reports to areas with frequent problems. Promote multi-departmental collaborative governance, emphasize the role of the Party Committee's leadership group in education, coordinate the promotion of reducing teachers' burden at the grassroots level and combating formalism, and advance work such as correcting improper conduct around the masses, and coordinate with discipline inspection and supervision, network information, public security, and other departments to strengthen supervision and guide public opinion.