Teachers in China are not faced with serious psychological problems, said Chinese Minister of Education Zhou Ji here Thursday.

It was earlier reported that 48 percent of the teachers in Shanghai have some sort of psychological problem, stemming from the pressure and anxiety caused by students' enrollment rate.

When asked to comment on this report at a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council, Zhou said he took note of the report but cited some figures in research findings as inaccurate. Generally speaking, he said, the whole contingent of teachers in China are healthy psychologically, so are the country's primary and middle school students.

It is an objective reality that some sort of psychological problems exist among some teachers, and China will enhance healthy education in this regard. But China cannot simply copy from ethics and concept from Western psychology and, therefore, should not mix psychological problems with people's mind-sets, which makes it difficulty to draw a fair conclusion, he said.

Zhou said China will step up the psychological education for teachers, since the education work relies on teachers' quality.

(Xinhua News Agency January 28, 2005)