By 2020, every Chinese prefecture, prefecture-level city, and every county that has more than 300,000 residents and a large number of disabled children should have at least one special education school for disabled students, says a national education outline.

The Outline of China's National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020) released Thursday says governments at all levels should speed up development of special education.

"Special education is a fundamental way to promote all-round development of the disabled and enable them to establish themselves in society," it says.

The government should formulate basic national standards for special education schools and local governments should set their own standards for fiscal funding of each student in such schools, according to the outline.

More funding should go into special education. The government should encourage and help regular schools provide adequate tuition and living conditions for enrolled disabled students, it says.

More financial aid should be allocated to disabled students from poor families. And free senior middle school education should gradually be made available to disabled students, according to the outline.

China now has 1,672 special schools with 428,000 students on campus.

(Xinhua News Agency July 30, 2010)