Schools run by the community, enterprises or even individuals have been flourishing in Lanzhou, capital city of Gansu Province in northwest China, becoming a major part of the local education system.

There are 25,000 students studying at some 100 of such schools in the city which has an urban population of more than 1.25 million. The total number of teachers and staff at these schools is 1,300.

Such schools began to emerge in Lanzhou in the early 1980s, when many remediation programs were launched for middle school students who sought to enter schools of a higher level. Today, the city's non-government education institutions include not only schools offering remediation programs, but also various professional training institutes, foreign language schools, and even colleges.

The municipal government has decided to implement a series of favorable policies to promote the development of such schools, in terms of enrollment, teachers' training and fund provision. The Bank of China Lanzhou Branch has signed an agreement with the Northwest Teacher's University on a 40-million-yuan loan to support a school run by the latter.

(People's Daily 06/18/2001)