A NOBLE CAUSE

At the well-lit Bund， a famous waterfront area in Shanghai in east China， the Chinese characters for Happy Teachers Day flashed on large screens on skyscrapers as a three-day light show started two days before Teachers Day， celebrated in China on September 10.

The day arrived soon after the reopening of schools across the country in the fall semester. In the spring semester， the novel coronavirus disease（COVID-19） epidemic had forced them to close down and teachers switched to online classes. Now， most teachers have returned to their brick-and-mortar classrooms.

In the face of the COVID-19 outbreak， teachers across the country braved difficulties， continued working and made important contributions to fighting the epidemic by dedicating themselves to the worlds largest-scale online teaching， President Xi Jinping said in his greetings to teachers and educational professionals ahead of Teachers Day.

Xi also commended their work to halt the intergenerational transmission of poverty and light up the dreams of rural children with love and wisdom.

Official statistics show China has 17.32 million teachers and 280 million students across the country.