A total of 98 percent of children in China's 410 poorest western
counties will receive nine-year compulsory education by the year
end, according to a four-year national plan on promoting compulsory
education.
Up to now, the nine-year compulsory education, including six
years in elementary school and three years in junior high school,
has covered 368 out of the 410 poorest western counties and the
other 42 counties have made elementary schooling from first to
sixth grade available for children.
Before the program was launched in 2004, the counties, mostly
located in mountainous and remote areas, had a large population of
minority ethnic groups who receive education for an average of only
6.7 years, said Tian Zuyin, a senior official in charge of finance
with the Ministry of Education, here on Monday.
To help more children attend schools, the program focuses on
relieving study expenses, providing living expenses for
impoverished students, recruiting more college graduates as
teachers and building boarding schools for the children whose homes
are far from schools.
From 2004 to 2007, the central government allocated 10 billion
yuan (1.3 billion U.S. dollars) to build more than 7,600 boarding
schools for some four million students in 953 counties in the
western areas.
"Infrastructure is only the fundamental condition, and education
resources are more important," Tian said.
During the plan, some 11 billion yuan was allocated by the
central and local governments to build distance teaching network in
rural areas. By the end of this year, more than 100 million primary
and middle school students in rural areas will enjoy education
resources that are equal to their urban counterparts.
Since 2006, the central government has also set up a special
fund to encourage college graduates to teach in rural areas
according to a standard of 15,000 yuan per capita. In the past two
years, a total of 33,000 college graduates were chosen to teach in
under-developed western areas.
China is expected to educate more than six million young
illiterates in western areas by the end of 2007, reducing the youth
illiteracy rate to under five percent.
(Xinhua News Agency November 28, 2007)