A survey by China Youth Daily and www.qq.com, a popular website for online chatting, has found 77.4 percent of netizens regard the ethics of teachers in the country as degenerating.

The newspaper published the results of the survey on Monday. The online survey also found more than half of the 2,200 people surveyed felt professors' behaviour of cursing in their blogs is the same personal assaults, which does not accord to teachers' norms. More than 70 percent thought professors should be punished for this.

Last year, Beijing Normal University Professor Ji Guangmao posted blog entries insulting and cursing fellow academic Zhong Hua of Sichuan Normal University, who had criticized one of his books. This gained Ji a nickname of "professor mudslinger" and he had to delete those entries from his blog after pressure from the media and public.

"Blogs, which possess elements of mass media, are more than personal journals. So bloggers should follow the social moral standards." Peking university professor Luan Yimei said.

In the survey, 60 percent agreed with Prof. Luan while 30 percent thought a blog is a "personal territory", and bloggers are free to express their opinions.

"Teachers and students are equal. If the students are to be punished for insulting words on their blogs, so should the teachers, " Prof. Du Hanfeng from the Communication University of China (CUC) said.

In the survey, 73 percent thought that the teachers should be punished by the university for their unethical deeds even though they did them off campus. However, 13 percent of them did not agree.

Peking University has already begun to improve regulations on its teachers' personal behaviour. "The university's Ethics Commission has changed the Regulation on Teacher's Ethics which is now regulating not only the teacher's academic ethics but also their personal behavior," said the university principal Xu Zhihong.

According to the survey, the majority (82 percent) thought teachers' ethics not only included scrutiny of their academic work, with no academic plagiarism, but also something else. About 78 percent chose tolerance, 76 percent chose politeness and honesty, and 72 percent chose respect for their students.

(Xinhua News Agency March 25, 2008)