A senior worker has been made professor of Shanghai Normal University for his intelligence and professionalism shown in his blue-collar job.

Li Bin, a veteran worker with the Shanghai Hydraulic Pump Factory, is the first "blue-collar professor" in Shanghai, east China.

Under their agreement, Li will give lectures and seminars to the electromechanical majors of the university and provide individual instruction to the students during their practical work at local workshops.

He readily accepted the offer. "It's important for schools to cultivate more professionals for the booming manufacturing sector," said Li.

It was his great happiness to share with the students the experience and know-how he had collected over the past two decades, he said, adding that he believed the youngsters would grow up to do an even better job.

"With his professional skills and integrity, we trust Mr. Li will bring the students something new and practical -- things most of our fellow professors do not have access to," said Prof. Huang Gang, assistant to the principal.

According to the school board, Li will be paid 200,000 yuan (24,100 US dollars) a year, the same as all other professors.

But Li does not care much about money -- his co-workers said he once turned down a job offer that promised 360,000 yuan (43,400 US dollars) a year.

Li, a technical school graduate who started with a very junior position at the factory in 1980, never had a chance to go to college. But he worked hard in his spare time to get a diploma and then a bachelor's degree.

A newly enacted regulation on Shanghai's professional training also encourages vocational schools and training centers to invite senior blue-collars to the classroom starting from the coming fall semester, hoping the students would gain something beyond book knowledge: a strong sense of responsibility, trouble-shooting expertise and nimble fingers.

Local businesses have also offered better pay to skilled blue-collars, whose average earning is above the city's average according to a recent survey conducted by the Shanghai labor and social security authority.

The survey indicates that experienced technicians in communications, electronics and auto-making industries and other high and new technology sectors can earn as much as 100,000 yuan (12,048 US dollars) a year, a salary considered desirable even according to the standards of many business executives.

Even technicians in some traditional industries -- skilled locksmiths, pattern-makers and oil refiners -- can make 70,000 to 80,000 yuan (8,434 to 9,638 US dollars) a year, according to the same survey.

Experts even foresee further rises in blue-collar incomes, social status and overall quality with sustained technological advancement, better working conditions and new concepts in business administration.

But senior workers merely account for 3.5 percent of China's 70 million industrial workers, compared with the average of 40 percent in developed countries.

The country has stepped up training of senior blue-collars to fill up the gap and to boost the manufacturing industry, which has provided the world market with an increasing number of "made-in-China" products.