BEIJING, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- China's education minister vowed on Thursday to promoteeducational equality and reduce regional, rural-urban and inter-school gaps in the field.
The central government's spending on education will reach 2.2 trillion yuan (350 billionU.S. dollars) in 2012, accounting for more than 4 percent of GDP this year, up 600billion yuan year on year, said Minister of Education Yuan Guiren at a pressconference.
The increase in educational funds from both central and local budgets will be used topromote educational equality as most of the money will be directed to poor and ethnicminority regions, according to Yuan.
The funds will also be used to train teachers, especially in rural areas, he said, addingthat a special project to attract rural teachers has employed more than 110,000teachers for more than 20,000 rural schools in 21 provincial-level regions in centraland western China.
"Strict regulations have been imposed on procedures to reduce or merge compulsoryeducation schools to ensure full engagement of local people and their right to monitorthe decision-making process," Yuan said.
The minister detailed how financial aid provided to poor students has been raised. In2010 and 2011, 156 million university, middle school and vocational school studentsnationwide were granted stipends totaling 183.68 billion yuan, a record high.
In order to ensure the schooling of rural migrants' children, the government has paidgreat attention to these "left-behind" kids and their educational issues.
Last year, the enrollment rate among children of rural migrant workers in public schoolsreached 79.4 percent. Another 10 percent attended schools in government-supportedprivate schools, and another 3 percent studied in schools collectively run by migrantworkers.
"They are migrants so the problem cannot be settled once and for all," Yuan noted.
"The problem has resulted from China's increasing rate of urbanization, which reached51 percent last year," he said, adding the issue was universal as in other industrializedcountries.
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