Photo: Screenshot of Weibo video

A middle school teacher in North China's Tianjin Municipality was discharged on Saturday after the publication of an audio record where she discriminates students by comparing the income and social position of their families. This sparked outcry on Chinese social media and triggered discussions on moral standards and values of teachers.

After the investigation, the teacher surnamed Xiao was removed from her position and her teaching certification was revoked, the Education Bureau of Jinnan district announced on Saturday. 

Xiao was suspended from her post on Thursday after her discrimination remarks were revealed and has remained under investigation. 

In an audio record posted by Toutiao News on the Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo, Xiao can be heard saying: "How much does your mother earn in a month? And your dad? Don't blame me for despising you." She's been identified as a teacher from Xinnangu No. 2 Middle School, Jinnan district of Tianjin.

"Compared with other student's mother who earns more money in a year than your mother earns in 50 years, do you think that your quality can be the same with that student? It can't be the same!" Xiao shouted to her students.

According to Feidian Video, the teacher later apologized for what she had said in the record: "I still treat you as my own children. If you don't work hard, you will be inferior to your parents, and your social class will be lowered."

However, the apology has raised more criticism from netizens. 

The record and the apology went viral on Chinese social media with the hashtag "Teacher apologized for discriminating students by comparing incomes of students' parents," being viewed more than 670 million times.

"If a teacher measures students by their parents' income and treats them with this kind of standards, this would be the greatest sadness of education," commented a Weibo user.

The Political and Judiciary Commission under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China condemned the teacher's behavior on its official WeChat account on Sunday, saying "the teacher, without educational ethics and talking about money all the time, has deviated from the nature and original intention of education." 

Chu Zhaohui, a research fellow at the National Institute of Education Sciences told the Global Times on Sunday that, "to motivate students, a teacher should start from the characteristics of each child and find their motivation points, rather than classifying students by income and occupation of their parents. This teacher's approach is obviously wrong." 

"The influence of a child's family background in education is only a small part and it is short-term. The long-term development of a person largely depends on his or her intelligence, perseverance, ambition, and motivation for self-growth," Chu said.