Students at the Sichuan Normal University in Chengdu, south-west China, are apparently studying harder and sitting in on extra classes just to see their ‘impossibly beautiful’ female educators.

Photos of 16 attractive female teachers from Sichuan Normal University have become a hot topic on Chinese social media websites, after they were uploaded online by their school. The good-looking teachers, who specialize in a variety of majors, including singing, dancing, artistic design, theater and English, were apparently selected to pose for the photos in a bid to change Chinese people’s views on successful female teachers, who are often perceived as old, ruthless and cold. The campaign was a big hit, and after the success of the first batch of photos posted in May, the university published a second series of photos on September 19.

A teacher surnamed Xu, who is in charge of the university’s social media publicity department, told the Daily Mail that the teachers were selected based on their popularity, academic achievements and physical appearance. “Because we’re a teachers’ college. Our students will be teachers in the future. We wanted these lectures to be their examples and to show them what they could become,” Xu said, adding that “students are very willing to take their lessons. Some said they would sit in on extra classes just to see these teachers.”

How being lectured by young beautiful women could show students what they could become is a puzzling mystery to me, but the reaction online has been overwhelmingly positive. People won’t stop praising the teachers on their looks, with some calling them ‘goddesses’ and ‘impossibly beautiful’. “If I were still studying, I would surely work harder,” one WeChat user commented.

Despite the generally positive feedback, there were a few comments that criticized Sichuan Normal University for relying on the physical attributes of its female teachers to promote itself. “It’s no use to say they are pretty. The key is if they know how to teach and if they teach hard,” one person wrote.

This isn’t the first time the attractive teachers of Sichuan Normal University made news headlines. In 2014, photos of an young English teacher went viral online, with reports that she had brought the attendance rate of male students to a historic high.

Photos: Sichuan Normal University