The Ministry of Education (MOE) said on Monday it will increase
its free textbook subsidies program for rural primary and middle
schools by 28.6 percent over 2007, an investment of roughly 16.7
billion yuan (2.3 billion U.S. dollars) annually.
The MOE website, www.moe.edu.cn, said the free textbooks
subsidies for rural primary schools would increase from 70 yuan per
student annually to 90 yuan. For rural middle schools, it would
rise from 140 yuan to 180 yuan.
Since the fall semester started last year, the MOE had spent
more than 13 billion yuan on the textbook program to facilitate
about 150 million rural primary and middle school students, the
website said.
The free textbook program was specifically aimed at compulsory
education. Chinese Education Law stipulated all citizen were to
receive nine years of compulsory fulltime education -- six years of
primary school and three of middle school.
The compulsory education was free. Previously, however, families
were responsible for paying for their children's textbooks and
learning guidebooks.
The central government budget was responsible for purchasing
textbooks that were designated for students by national educational
authorities. For other textbooks chosen by local educational
boards, local budgets needed to be used for supplying students free
of charge, the ministry said.
It also stipulated that neither local educational authorities
nor schools should charge students for textbooks or learning
guidebooks.
It also encouraged local governments to provide financial
support to cover living costs of boarding students from poor
families. Half of the financial support would be from the central
government.
Finance Minister Xie Xuren said recently the funding for
guaranteed compulsory education would soon be extended to urban
students.
In the first 11 months of 2007, he said 557.8 billion yuan of
fiscal expenditure was used for education, up 32.7 percent compared
with the same period the year before.
(Xinhua News Agency January 7, 2008)