South China's Guangdong Province will pour about 300 million
yuan (US$37.5 million) in vocational education in its
underdeveloped eastern region in the next five years.
The provincial government will investment 200 million yuan
(US$25 million) to build a new senior polytechnical school that can
accommodate more than 10,000 students in Shantou City.
The government will also allocate 20 million yuan (US$2.5
million) to Shantou, Shanwei, Chaozhou and Jieyang each for
expanding vocational schools.
The eastern part of Guangdong has a population of 15.8 million,
or 17.3 percent of Guangdong's total, with its gross domestic
product accounting for 6.9 percent of that of Guangdong.
Vocational education is a good way to transfer the region's rich
labor resources from limited farmland, according to experts at a
recent conference on promoting the development of the eastern
region.
Besides building and expanding vocational schools, the
provincial government will also set up a training center for
vocational education in Shanwei, Chaozhou and Jieyang.
The provincial government will invest 170 billion yuan (US$21.2
billion) in industry, transportation, energy and agriculture in the
eastern area to promote its economic development in the 2006-2010
period.
(Xinhua News Agency September 25, 2006)