Reform leading group demands more even school quality

There must be more even development of compulsory education between rural and urban parts of China to bridge a gap in quality, the country's leaders said on Friday.

A statement released after a meeting of the Leading Group for Overall Reform stressed careful distribution of resources among rural and urban schools offering nine-year compulsory education, and improved funding mechanisms for such education.

The meeting was chaired by President Xi Jinping, also head of the leading group, and attended by deputy heads Li Keqiang, Liu Yunshan and Zhang Gaoli, as well as other senior officials.

The statement urged measures be taken to improve the teaching quality of rural schools, stabilize the number of students in rural schools, guarantee the rights of migrant workers' children to receive education in cities, and take better care of children left at home by migrant-worker parents.

The meeting adopted a document on standardizing law enforcement practices by police, which called for better mechanism, regulations and training to ensure professional and standard law enforcement.

There must be strict supervision over law enforcement, prominent problems in law enforcement must be solved, and efforts must be made so that people may feel fairness and justice in each and every law enforcement action and in every case, the statement said.

The meeting also passed a document on supporting the development of voluntary service organizations, citing their role in nurturing socialistic core values and satisfying people's ever increasing demands on social services.

The statement called for better legal protection of and support to voluntary social service organizations to put their efforts into poverty alleviation, disaster relief, helping the old and the orphaned, healthcare and education.

The meeting also approved a document on developing legal services for foreign affairs to support China's opening up drive and serve China's diplomatic work.

More work needs to be done in this area so as to better protect the legitimate interests of overseas Chinese citizens and companies as well as foreign citizens and companies based in China, according to the statement. Endi