Press briefing on household registration reform

China National Radio and CNR.cn:

I saw such regulations in the "Opinions": to guarantee equal rights to education for the offspring of transferred agricultural population and accompanying offspring of other members of the permanent resident population, so as to incorporate all in the service system of community health and family planning and to offer the basic medical care service system. My question is for the Ministry of Education and the National Health and Family Planning Commission. Are there any specific actions planned in regard to these two regulations? Thank you.

Liu Limin:

I'd like to answer your first question. This is very important, because it refers to the issue of educational equality. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council pay great attention to the education of accompanying offspring. The Ministry of Education will take concrete and efficient measures with relevant departments to actively ensure they receive a proper education and can take entrance examinations in the places to which they have immigrated.

First is the promotion of inclusive pre-school education. In 2010, according to the "Several Opinions on Developing the Current Pre-school Education," the Ministry of Education carried out the "three-year action plan of pre-school education" in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance. In the plan, we established a program named "comprehensive awards and allowances for pre-school education in cities", aimed at supporting local governments and focus on the inclusive kindergartens to solve the entrance problems of accompanying offspring of migrant workers. By such means, benefits have covered more than three million children in the past three years. This is one aspect.

The second step has been action mainly aimed at getting public schools to receive accompanying offspring to ensure they receive compulsory education. In this aspect, we have always adopted the policy of "two priorities," which is to give priority to local governments receiving immigrants and to public schools. People may have noticed that there has been an increase of a million per year for the public schools receiving accompanying offspring. Up to the end of 2013, there were 12 million such children included in national compulsory education, 80 percent at public schools.

The third step is to promote free secondary vocational education. From 2009, the ministries of finance, education, human resources and social security and the National Development and Reform Commission carried out the policy of free secondary vocational education and continuously extended the range. By 2012, 90 percent of secondary vocational students benefited from the policy. Up to this year, 19 provinces and cities have extended the policy to all secondary vocational students. It means in most provinces, the accompanying offspring can receive free secondary vocational education.

The fourth step has been to ensure accompanying offspring can take part in the entrance examinations in their new places of residence. In this regard, you may have noticed the No. 46 document issued in August 2012 by the State Council General Office. According to it, 27 provinces had clarified the policy for senior-high school entrance examination and 30 provinces clarified the policy for college entrance examination for accompanying offspring in local places. In 2014, a total of 28 provinces began to deal with the question of the college entrance examination for accompanying offspring, involving taking the exam at a place different from the household register. This year, 56,000 qualified accompanying offspring checked out the registration procedures for the college entrance examination.

Next, according to the general requirements of reforms to the household registration system introduced by Minister Huang, we'll devote ourselves to four aspects.

The first relates to planning. The Ministry of Education will guide the country to incorporate the permanent resident population, including accompanying offspring, into regional education development plans.

The second point related to funding. We require all places to allocate educational funds according to the number of in-school accompanying offspring of migrant workers. Just now, Minster Wang Bao'an also mentioned this issue and, meanwhile, we will strengthen the efforts of giving special awards from central finance to local schools that receive such students.

The third point covers guidance with respect to the different classifications, we require all the provinces and cities to adopt measures suiting local conditions to reasonably make policies for accompanying offspring to enter schools and to guarantee that they can receive equal education.

The fourth step is to strengthen management. We will constantly improve the national primary and secondary school students registration information management system. The data bank contains all students in national compulsory education and senior high school levels, including accompanying offspring, which give us a comprehensive, timely and accurate grasp of dynamic information, namely one person one number that never changes through life. So, at present, we can clearly know how many students are in compulsory education, and how many of these are accompanying offspring. We aim to better strengthen our services for them. Thank you.

Wang Pei'an:

Thank you for your attention to the question of the transferred agricultural population enjoying the basic public services of health care and family planning. To answer the question, I will firstly briefly introduce the existing conditions of community health institutions in cities. The community health care and family planning institution is the basic facility for health care and the family planning service system in cities, which has a public nature and provides basic medical care and public health services. In big and medium sized cities, the government, in principle, establishes one community health service center and several stations as necessary per 30,000 to 100,000 residents, or according to the scope of the relevant street office. Up to the end of 2013, there were 8,488 centers, 25,500 stations and manned by 476,000 personnel. The community health care service system has been basically established. Permanent residents in the area of jurisdiction, including the transferred agricultural population and other permanent resident population, can enjoy community health care services.

In regard to medical care services, we always include the transferred agricultural population and other permanent resident population within the range of disease prevention and control. According to the requirements of the "Law of the PRC on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases", we implement territorial management; that is, the health administrative department of the people's government is responsible for infectious disease prevention and treatment and supervision and management for all the population (including registered residents and non-registered residents) in its administrative division. According to the "Expanded Immunization Program Action Scheme", all children reaching a certain age are targets of immunization and can get State-regulated and guaranteed vaccination for free.

In regard to family planning, according to the "Administrative Regulation on Family Planning Technical Services", all the married women of childbearing age, including the floating population, can get the free basic technical service of family planning, mainly containing the technical guidance, consultation and clinical medical service of family planning. Besides, the migrant population can receive free contraceptive devices at the nearest place ensured by the special funds from the central budget. Next, we will combine the reforms of the registration system, in accordance with the actual population in the area of jurisdiction, and reasonably regulate and constantly adjust the layout of the community health care and family planning institutions to satisfy the health demands of residents in the area of jurisdiction, including the transferred agricultural population and other permanent population. Thank you.