Education is strategic priority in China

Beijing: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday announced a hefty educational investment plan for this year, making education a "strategic priority."

A total of 85.85 billion yuan ($11 billion) will be allocated from the central budget this year, an increase of 41.7 per cent over the previous year, government statistics show.

Part of the central educational fund will be used to grant poor students an access to education, Wen said in his address to Chinese parliament on Monday.

"Education is the bedrock of China's development and fairness in education is an important form of social fairness," Wen said.

"We need to make education a strategic priority and accelerate the development of all types of education at all levels."

The country will further implement the state student loan system that was introduced in 1999 in eight major cities including Beijing and Shanghai and was extended to the rest of the country in 2004.

In another move highlighted in the government work report, Wen said the country would grant free education for students majoring in education in teacher colleges.

At present, many primary and secondary schools are short of teachers specialising in foreign languages, information technology, music, fine arts and physical education.

Statistics last year showed the academic degrees held by teachers in about 310,000 primary and secondary schools did not reach the national standard.

The government has encouraged urban teachers to work in rural schools in order to improve the overall quality of rural education. College graduates having taught three years in rural schools can continue their postgraduate studies without extra exams within two years of their return to cities.