Off the wire
• 44 ministerial secretaries sworn in as Sri Lanka's national gov't begins work  • Norway, Russia to sign agreement on notification of nuclear incidents  • Rights body accuses members of Indian military, police officers of abuses in Indian-controlled Kashmir  • High-level delegation from Pakistan arrives in India for talks on border situation  • Two killed as gunmen attack military camp in Burundi: official  • Iraqi forces repel IS attack in Anbar province  • Singapore's Chinatown to switch on 2,300 lanterns for celebration of Mid-autumn Festival  • Roundup: Internal disputes result in postponement of PNC meeting  • China loses to Jordan in basketball tourney  • Cameroonian soldiers demonstate over peacekeeping mission pay  
You are here: 　 Home

Impoverished area in SW China to offer 15 years of free education

Xinhua, September 9, 2015 Adjust font size:

A poverty-stricken ethnic prefecture in southwest China's Sichuan Province will offer students 15 years of free education from 2016, authorities said Wednesday.

Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, where many families are grappling with abject poverty, will take the lead with 15 years of free education, from kindergarten through senior high school, according to a meeting held in the province.

In most parts of the country, children receive only nine years of free education.

Liangshan has more than 970,000 students and over 3,000 schools. An official with the prefecture's education bureau revealed that the quality of education, especially preschool education, has been lagged far behind other parts of the country due to poverty and remoteness.

In 2016, the prefecture will raise funds of 2.4 billion yuan (around 390 million U.S. dollars) to build 450 kindergartens at township level and child-care centers in 5,000 villages to improve preschool education, said Lin Shucheng, the party secretary of Liangshan.

Since 2010, Sichuan has allocated more than 13 billion yuan of education funds to the prefecture. Endi