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Premier Wen Jiabao on Sunday pledged government funds to improve and provide school bus services after a deadly crash that killed 19 children.

Premier Wen Jiabao speaks at the opening ceremony of the fifth national meeting on women and children affairs in Beijing on November 27, 2011.

A school van with nine seats but crammed with 62 children and two adults crashed head-on into a truck in northwestern Gansu Province on Nov 16. Twenty-one people, including 19 preschoolers and two adults died. Another 43 were injured.

On Saturday, a school bus carrying 39 people in Fengcheng city, Liaoning Province, rolled over, injuring 35, including two who suffered serious brain injuries, according to authorities.

The tragedies sparked a swell of comments online and in the press calling for an overhaul of China's badly managed and under serviced school transportation system.

Wen said that relevant government departments were working to create safety regulations and standards for the design and production of school buses.

The central and local governments will bear the cost of bringing the buses up to standard, the premier said.

He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the fifth national meeting on women and children affairs in Beijing.

More rural students now have to travel long distances to schools in counties or cities, as the number of village schools has declined due to consolidation efforts.

However, Wen said a lot of local governments have failed to meet the rapidly increased demand for safe school buses or established sound management systems.

Officials will face investigations into their liability if tragedies such as the one in Gansu occur again, he warned.

"School buses should be safe mobile campuses for students," Wen said. "Society should bear in mind that children should be the first to enjoy all kinds of social welfare and the last ones to suffer from any disaster."

Yuan Guilin, an education professor at Beijing Normal University who is known for his research into rural education, has proposed that all school buses should be equipped with black boxes, adding that it is achievable and affordable.

The government should also improve the wages and benefits for drivers to prevent them from taking extra jobs and often driving while tired, he said.

Given that some authorities complain that they are short of money, Yuan suggested they be allowed to sell advertising space on school buses.

Gan Yuanchun, a lawyer in Changsha, capital of Hunan Province, who participated in a campaign to promote school bus safety, said the central government should encourage the use of smaller school buses in rural areas, as roads in remote countryside areas are not as wide as in cities.

Students' parents should also be able to get involved in deciding how school buses are managed, he added.

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