With enrollment letters being delivered to college candidates,
China's Ministry of Education pledged on Tuesday that the
government would ensure every poor student could enter college even
if they don't have the money for tuition fees.
"China has made unprecedented efforts to establish a nationwide
mechanism to help poor university students," said Wang Xuming, the
Ministry's spokesman, at a press conference.
The "Green Channel" policy, introduced in 2000, will be
reinforced to enable poor students to register for college first
and pay tuition later with the help of subsidized loans and reduced
fees, according to Wang.
Statistics from the Ministry show that about 390,000 students
used "Green Channel" to register for college in 2005, accounting
for eight percent of total registrations.
China also launched a large-scale scheme in 1999 to provide
subsidized loans to poor college students. By the end of June,
2.405 million students had received loans totaling 20.14 billion
yuan (around US$2.5 billion)
What's more, universities are required to provide more work and
study programs, decrease or eliminate charges for poor students,
and reduce tuition fees by 10 percent to subsidize poor
students.
China now has 15.62 million college students, three million of
whom come from poor families.
In China, families have to pay at least 8,000 yuan (US$975.6) a
year for their child's college education, which means farmers have
to shell out years of income.
A media report blamed a farmer's suicide on his fear of being
unable to afford the college tuition fees of his son. Though the
Ministry of Education claimed their investigation showed the
suicide had nothing to do with the son's college application, the
event nevertheless spurred a renewed outcry about the difficulty
and cost of education.
(Xinhua News Agency July 26, 2006)