The two teachers who came down for educational support both graduated from normal junior colleges. In this era of guaranteed job assignment, the difference in treatment between staying at the university and going down to teach in the countryside was as vast as heaven and earth.
Staying at the university meant a direct, stable job, whereas teachers who went down to the countryside had to spend two or three years toiling at the grassroots level. Although there were subsidies, that paltry allowance was clearly insufficient in a society developing at such a rapid pace.
The salary for going to the countryside was paid by the local village or the county, but in the case of a village with extremely poor economic conditions, going several months in arrears was actually a common occurrence.
Chapter 80