Education can close the gap between social groups to stop poverty breeding poverty and achieve the full and all round development of people, he said.

Efforts must be made to promote equal access to education as it is the basis of social justice, Wen added.

More education resources should go to underdeveloped areas, more students from low-income families should get government grants, and more special education schools should be built to achieve equal access to education, he said.

China has been increasing scholarship funding and subsidies for students. This year 26 billion yuan from the central budget would be spent on scholarships and subsidies for students of universities and vocational schools, up from 2.05 billion yuan in 2006, Wen said.

Authorities should ensure children of migrant workers had access to free and compulsory education, he urged.

Wen called for more coordinated development of education, stressing more efforts were needed to improve preschool, vocational and higher education.

For children from rural and low-income urban families, who accounted for more than 85 percent of students in vocational schools, vocational education would help them find jobs and shake off poverty, Wen said.

The higher education sector needed to be moderately expanded as the proportion of universities students per capita remained low, Wen said.

In 2009, China's higher learning institutions had 29.79 million students, with a gross enrolment rate of 24.2 percent.

Wen admitted preschool education was a "very weak link" in China's education system, and "the people have many complaints about it."

The government should increase investment in preschool education and encourage private investment, he said. Priority should be given to developing preschool education in rural, remote and ethnic minority areas, as well as in the country's less developed central and west regions.