A report from one of the special committees of the National People's Congress (NPC) has recommended speeding up the revision of the Law on Compulsory Education.

The report submitted by the education, science, culture and public health committee was passed here Tuesday by the NPC Standing Committee.

The Law on Compulsory Education and the Educational Law have played important roles in the establishment of the compulsory education scheme and the popularization of the nine-year compulsory education, said the report.

However, it noted some provisions of the two laws did not meet the current situation as the administrative and financing systems have changed under the background of a socialist market economy and the taxation reform spreading widely in rural areas.

A total of about 600 deputies to the First Session of the 10th NPC held in March this year jointly signed a motion regarding the revision of the 17-year-old law on compulsory education. There had never been a motion winning so much support from so many legislators in the NPC's history.

The deputies appealed to well define channels for investment in education and identify the responsibility of the government at all levels so as to guarantee the sustainable development of education in rural areas.

Statistics show that by 2002, 90 percent of the Chinese population had been covered by the nine-year compulsory education scheme.

But there are still 85 million illiterate and semi-illiterate people in the country, with three fourths of them in rural areas.

(Xinhua News Agency October 29, 2003)