You are here: Home > China > Features

Poor county extends compulsory education

By Wang Wei: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, November 24, 2011

Adjust font size:

The county has seen a sharp increase in the number of preschool students since it began offering the courses for free this autumn. [File photo]

Ningshan County, nestled deep in the Qinling Mountains of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, has extended its compulsory education program to 15 years, offering local students free schooling from kindergarten to high school.

That's six more years than the national compulsory education system requires. What's more, the local government has achieved the expanded schooling program with total fiscal revenue of just 30 million yuan (US$4.72 million) in 2010, spending 13 million yuan on the program – nearly 40 percent of its annual revenue, more than triple the 12.5 percent spent on education nationwide.

"Development of education is a priority project aimed at improving people's lives," Chen Lunbao, party secretary of Ningshan County, said. "Although it doesn't work immediately, children are always the hope for both the country and its families."

Since 2007, this poor county has been taken a number of steps to improve local education.

Students at Huayan Primary School in Ningshan County, Shaanxi Province, have enjoyed free breakfast including an egg and a bottle of milk since 2009. [File photo]

Zhang Dengqin, a 12-year-old girl at Tangping Primary School, gets free hot food at school. Four years ago, the school, like many others in the county, had no canteens. Most students lived on campus and had to bring their own food with them to the school each week.

Visiting villages on a winter day in 2007 as part of an inspection tour, Chen, then county mayor, came across a group of boarding students on their way to school.

Noticing the full jars of pickles they had with them, Chen, once a village teacher, was distraught. "Thrifty students can depend on a jar of pickles for a week; those without any plan will run out and only eat dry pancakes for the latter half of the week," he said. "Now, many people in urban areas eat too much, while rural children's physical development is suffering from a serious lack of nutrition."

The next day, a program was proposed to improve local students' diets. One month later, the project was carried out and children there were able to eat warm meals, drink warm soup and get hot water to wash their feet before sleep.

Granting each student a daily subsidy of 3 yuan (US$0.47), the poor county allocated 1.5 million yuan (US$236,000) for the free food each year. Its fiscal revenue at the time was only 12.17 million yuan (US$1.9 million).

In 2008, in order to develop a pool of skilled labor, the Ningshan county government implemented a policy of abolishing tuition fees at vocational schools and granting a yearly living allowance of 1,500 yuan (US$236) to each student. But due to a lack of businesses in the area, it was difficult for graduates from the schools to get jobs after graduation.

1 2 Next