China awarded 400 million yuan (about 55 million U.S. dollars)
in state scholarships to 50,000 poor college students with
outstanding academic achievements on Thursday.
Each student received 8,000 yuan (1,103 U.S. dollars), an amount
nearly double that of previous years because of augmented
government investment.
All the state scholarship fund was covered by the central
budget, according to Chinese State Councilor Chen Zhili.
State scholarships, which were set up in 2002, originally
provided 6,000 yuan each to 10,000 first-class scholarships
winners, and 4,000 yuan to 35,000 second-class winners.
Chen said at the awarding ceremony held in Beijing the state
scholarship was an important part of the country's assistance
network to help poverty-stricken students.
To ensure education equality and the wholesome development of
education, the government introduced an array of favorable policies
to bail out poor students. These included scholarships, grants,
student loans, tuition waivers and the work-study programs under
which poor students helped out in libraries, teachers' offices or
service departments to earn money.
The central and provincial governments will double the student
aid program budget to 30.8 billion yuan. This is to provide
financial aid to more college and vocational school students
starting in September, according to the Ministry of Finance.
The program benefited about four million college students and
more than 16 million vocational school students last year.
(Xinhua News Agency January 18, 2008)