Many primary and middle school buildings, especially those in the central and west parts of the country, have safety problems, a top legislator said yesterday.

By the end of last year, about 2.48 percent, or 33.58 million sq m, of primary and middle school buildings were unsafe, said Lu Yongxiang, vice-chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee.

The total floor space of the dilapidated structures would be 134 times the area of the National Stadium, or Bird's Nest.

"About 90 percent of the dilapidated houses are in the country's central and western parts," he told lawmakers at a plenary session. His data are based on a recent survey on local governments' implementation of the Compulsory Education Law.

Ministry of Education figures show that by the end of last year, 20 percent of the primary and 11 percent the of middle school buildings in Yunnan province were not totally safe. And more than 85 percent of those buildings fell in the "D" category, or the most dangerous level of unsafe structures.

Liu Hang, an architect with Beijing Building Construction Research Institute, said: "D category houses should be vacated or repaired immediately."

Ma Xiaoqiang, a researcher with the China National Institute for Educational Research, said the number of dilapidated school buildings had actually fallen.

Since 2004, the central government has invested 10 billion yuan on a four-year program to improve the condition of rural schools in the western part of the country.

New school buildings completed by last year had a cumulative area of more than 13.81 million sq m, said an earlier report.

"Though some local governments have not demolished old and dilapidated school buildings, they do not use them. They have kept them to seek subsidy from the central government," Ma said.

"That partly explains why there are a high number of D category school buildings in the western part of the country. But I'm not denying that a number of school buildings have safety problems."

Last year, the government spent 29.92 billion yuan on compulsory education in rural areas, a year-on-year increase of 37.4 percent. "But problems still exist in appropriating, using and managing education funds," Lu said.

According to Lu's report, three out of 16 provinces and eight out of 54 counties that the legislators inspected had problems in meeting the education fund's aims.

(China Daily December 26, 2008)