The Shanghai Municipal Education Commission has outlined a plan to end teacher tenure in the city's elementary and middle schools, local media reported Thursday.

The changes would put more pressure on teachers to improve their performance in a school system where it is rare for a teacher to be fired, but concerns remain that the authority will not be able to come up with an effective method for evaluating teachers, which may lead to abuse in the system.

If the changes are enacted, the education authority would require primary or secondary school teachers to renew their certification every five years, during which their performance would be evaluated, according to a report in the Oriental Morning Post.

The measure would put an end to teachers having a job for life, Zhou Jingtai, head of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission's human resource department, told the newspaper.

"The changes will put more pressure on teachers, which is actually good as it encourages them to be more dedicated to their jobs," said a vice principal at the local Qianqiao School, who asked not to be identified. "If they turn out to be unqualified, the school will have the right to fire them, which is really rare under the current system."

Currently, teachers who perform poorly often end up getting transferred to other classes, but still hold onto their jobs.

Although the planned changes will help ensure the quality of education in the city, they need to be fleshed out with details about how teacher performance will be evaluated, the vice principal said.

"Otherwise, it will still be difficult to fire a teacher unless he or she beats a student or commits a crime," he told the Global Times.

Zhou Xiaoyan, the mother of a 15-year-old middle school student in Shanghai, said the change was for the better. "Breaking teacher tenure will at least give teachers some pressure and push them to put more effort into improving the quality of their teaching," she told the Global Times.

Still, without an objective evaluation system, it is possible for teachers to lose their jobs for reasons that have nothing to do with performance, said Xiong Bingqi, an education researcher and vice president of the 21st Century Education Development Research Institute.

"It is likely that the system will be abused and end up doing the opposite of improving the quality of education," Xiong told the Global Times.