With a financial input of 7.2 billion yuan (around
US$900 million) in 2005, a government-sponsored program aided
millions of poor rural households by exempting them from school
tuition, incidental fees and providing boarding subsidies to their
kids.
Wang Xuming, spokesman with China's Ministry of
Education, said on Tuesday that the fund enabled 34 million primary
and junior middle school students in the central and western rural
areas to get free textbooks, and over 31 million were exempted from
incidental fees, each accounting about 30 percent of the total.
With the program, poor kids in rural elementary
schools each enjoyed a 210-yuan cut in tuition and incidental fees
on average every year, and those in junior middle schools could
enjoy a cut of 320 yuan, Wang said, adding that boarders could get
a subsidy of 200 to 300 yuan.
"The program helped 350,000 drop-outs in the
regions go back to schools in 2005," Wang said.
Soaring education fees have left many kids from
poor families in China's outlying western regions out of
schools.
China has decided to invest 218.2 billion yuan
(US$27 billion) in rural education to ensure that every child in
rural and poor areas can enjoy a nine-year compulsory
education.
From this spring semester, China has exempted
primary and junior middle school students in poor western part of
the country from school tuition fees and incidental charges. And
all rural students will enjoy the free nine-year compulsory
education by the end of next year.
(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2006)