This is NEWS Plus Special English.
Teachers taking backhanders and profiting from after-school lessons is a barely concealed secret in China, and it's got so close to the surface that education authorities are cracking down.
While ambitious parents like to give teachers gifts to buy extra attention for their children, others hate the practice and accuse teachers of greed.
According to a recent report by the Ministry of Education, China's 31 provincial-level regions have all come up with rules on teachers' conduct and more than 95 percent of schools responded to a survey that they weigh morality heavily in their staff evaluation.
Teachers are banned from demanding gifts and money from parents, receiving money for extra lessons, forcing students to buy additional learning materials or introducing them to other educational institutions.
In September, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences released the results of a survey of 3,000 parents and 15,000 students, showing that 7 percent of the parents and 10 percent of the students held negative views on the morality of teachers in elementary and middle schools.
Ten percent of the parents admitted they had sent gifts to teachers.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
Israel will help train Chinese medical workers for the underdeveloped southwestern regions in its program to aid China next year.
According to the Israeli Consulate General in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, next year, doctors from Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces will have opportunities to study medicine in Israel.
Consul general Amir Lati made the announcement at an event for Israel's Agency for International Development Cooperation, or Mashav, in Chengdu.
Mashav is a part of Israel's Foreign Affair Ministry which is in charge of international cooperation via knowledge sharing and capacity building.
Dr. Moris Topaz, a plastic surgeon from Israel said China has made great progress in infrastructure construction in its medical sector, but still needs state-of-the-art technology to better treat patients.
Topaz is widely respected by his Chinese colleagues for helping to treat victims of a powerful earthquake that shook Sichuan Province in 2008. He introduced technology that spared many patients from amputation and reduced antibiotic dosages and inflammation risks.
Since it was established in 1957, Mashav has trained more than 270,000 people from across the world in diverse sectors including agriculture, medicine, education and rural and urban development.
