The government will provide free textbooks to all students in
rural areas in nine-year compulsory education, State Councilor Chen
Zhili said on Thursday.
The government has been providing free textbooks for poor rural
students, and such a policy will be expanded to all the 150 million
rural students in primary and junior high schools, said Chen at a
national conference on compulsory education expenditure.
She urged local governments to make preparations for the new
move and ensure enough fund to be allocated for the compulsory
education.
China exempted rural students in western regions from compulsory
education fees in 2006 and the exemption policy was expanded to the
central and eastern regions in 2007.
And the government will exempt all students in urban areas from
tuition fees in nine-year compulsory education from next year.
Chen also said the central government will increase educational
input to increase accommodation subsidies for needy students and to
repair the ramshackle classrooms in central and western areas.
The Ministry of Finance (MOF) said Wednesday it would
allocate a further 47 billion yuan (6.4 billion U.S. dollars) to
support rural education in the next three years until 2009.
China has basically realized its educational goals in its
western regions, according to Chen.
She said 368 of the 410 most impoverished counties in the
western regions had accomplished their goals to provide nine years
of compulsory education and to make all young and middle-aged
people literate.
While the other 42 had failed to achieve their goals, they had
made compulsory schooling from first to sixth grade available for
children, said Chen. She asked local governments to give more
support and to make more effort to help those counties catch up
with their counterparts.
In 2004, the government launched a campaign where everyone
living in the country's western regions would be able to receive
compulsory schooling from first to ninth grades by 2007 and to make
all young and middle-aged people literate.
(Xinhua News Agency November 30, 2007)
