China plans to extend its nine years of compulsory education to
cover more than 98 percent of the population and to wipe out
illiteracy in all people between 15 and 24 years old by 2010, the
Ministry of
Education announced in a statement today.
By the end of 2004, the country had extended compulsory
education to cover 93.6 percent of the population, the report
said.
Zhang Xinsheng, Vice Minister of Education, said the number of
students taking senior education in China rose to 14 million this
year from 6.28 million in 1998, the highest number of senior
students in the world.
Premier Wen
Jiabao has announced that China will fund long-district
education in rural areas in the next five years, which will involve
the state bearing the cost of equipping junior high schools in
rural areas with computers and with media-linked classrooms and
making satellite teaching available. At the same time all rural
schools will have educational DVDs in line with other cities like
Shanghai and Beijing.
By 2007, the government will exempt poor students from book and
incidental expenses in rural areas, Zhang said.
Zhang also said the government had spent 107 billion yuan
(US$12.24 billion) more on elementary schools in rural areas in
2004, compared with 2000, and 57.4 billion yuan more on junior high
schools.
(Shanghai Daily November 11, 2005)