A notice has been issued to deploy the Silver-Age Teaching Program, aiming to fully leverage the professional strengths and experience of retired teachers, promote the balanced allocation of high-quality teaching resources, and build a high-level teacher workforce for the new era.

The notice proposes recruiting 6,000 teaching teachers at the compulsory education level in 2026, including 130 in Shanxi Province.

The notice specifies that the 2026 Silver-Age Teaching Program will primarily target poverty-stricken counties, underdeveloped ethnic minority counties, counties in revolutionary old areas, border counties, and regiment farms of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, with emphasis on counties designated as key recipients of national rural revitalization support. The recipient schools will be county-level, township, and rural schools.

This year, the plan is to recruit 6,000 silver-age teaching teachers at the compulsory education level. On this basis, localities are encouraged to select outstanding retired teachers on their own initiative to carry out teaching in other counties and townships with weak educational development, and to include regular high schools in the autonomous implementation scope as needed.

The notice emphasizes that retired teachers applying for the Silver-Age Teaching Program should mainly be principals, teaching researchers, special-grade teachers, and backbone teachers. Applicants are required to be politically reliable, possess noble professional ethics and deep educational commitment, be dedicated to their work, highly competent, in good health, willing to contribute, and have a solid work style. They should have rich teaching and educational experience, generally hold a mid-level or higher teacher professional title, with senior teachers making up the majority. The service period should generally be no less than one academic year, and those who pass the assessment are encouraged to continue teaching. Retired teachers rehired by their original work units are not included in the Silver-Age Teaching Program.

The notice requires proper guarantee of benefits for teaching teachers. During their service period, the personnel relationship and existing retirement benefits of teaching teachers remain unchanged. Working funds shall be disbursed monthly, mainly used for work subsidies, transportation and travel expenses, and accident insurance premiums for teaching teachers. For teaching teachers at the compulsory education level, the working funds shall be shared equally by the central and local governments at a standard of 20,000 yuan per person per year. Recipient counties shall provide temporary housing for teaching teachers and equip them with necessary living facilities.

The notice requires all localities to promptly launch public recruitment of teaching teachers in light of local conditions, coordinate across different regions, and give priority to ensuring the needs of educationally underdeveloped areas such as counties designated as key recipients of national rural revitalization support, as well as areas, school stages, schools, and subjects facing periodic teacher shortages. Recruitment information should be published through multiple channels to attract qualified retired teachers to actively participate, contributing silver-haired strength to improving the quality of education in underdeveloped areas and advancing the balanced development of education.