China will only be able to provide quality education by increasing the education budget, a senior Chinese official said in Geneva Thursday.

The Chinese government has already increased spending on education in rural areas and is implementing a program to promote nine-year compulsory education in the western poverty-stricken areas, Vice-Minister of Education Chen Xiaoya told the 47th session of the International Conference on Education.

Chen said China will adopt strategies to deal with the two biggest challenges facing secondary education in China in the coming years -- the increasing number of school-aged learners and the increasing demand of people demanding quality education.

One strategy is to strengthen rural education to narrow the basic education development gap between rural and urban people and between different regions, said Chen.

China is also trying to carry out information education so that quality educational resources can be shared by learners in the remote and rural areas, she added.

Another strategy is to implement the new curriculum reform for junior high schools to enable educational contents and teaching methods adapt to the needs of the changing context, Chen said.

Further expanding the scale of senior high school and strengthening professional training of education personnel is also needed, she noted.

"As we all know that learning can change people's life and help create a new world. The changing and developing times in which we live also need learning," said the vice-minister, adding that China is ready to share its experiences with international community.

The theme of the four-day session, which began on Wednesday, is "Quality Education for all Young People: Challenges, Trends and Priorities."

The session, organized by the International Bureau of Education (IBE) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), has attracted ministers from 86 countries.

(Xinhua News Agency September 10, 2004)