China will increase financial input for education in the coming
five years and gradually raise the proportion of annual government
education expenditures to 4 percent of the gross domestic product
GDP according to an official document seen Monday.
"It should be made clear that governments at all levels have the
responsibility to provide public education, as well as support the
development of the private education sector," read the Guidelines
for the
11th Five-Year Guidelines for National Economic and Social
Development, which are being discussed at the annual full
session of the Chinese parliament, the National People's
Congress.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Education, the
proportion of China's government education expenditures to the GDP
stood at 3.41 percent in 2002, up from 2.55 percent in 1998.
"We must implement the strategy of reinvigorating China with
science and technology and improving China's national strength with
skilled personnel, ... and work hard to build an innovation- based
country and a country with human resources advantages," says the
document.
A major task for the country's education is to promote and
consolidate the nine-year compulsory education, especially in the
vast countryside, according to the guidelines.
In his cabinet work report delivered at the just-opened
parliament session on Sunday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged
that the government would eliminate all charges on rural students
receiving nine-year compulsory education before the end of
2007.
The new policy, which requires an additional 218.2 billion yuan
(US$27.27 billion) in the central government budget expenditures
over the next five years, is expected to benefit some 160 million
school-age children in the rural regions, who account for nearly 80
percent of the country's primary and junior middle school
students.
(Xinhua News Agency March 6, 2006)