Promoting equity in education

Free nine-year compulsory education is now available to all children, urban or rural, throughout the country. Since 2006 the Chinese government has reformed and adjusted the mechanism for ensuring funding for rural compulsory education; and since 2008 urban students undergoing compulsory education have been exempted from tuition and other fees. Nine-year compulsory education has been fully incorporated into the national financial security system.

China has been active in promoting balanced compulsory education. The government has prioritized rural areas, outlying poor areas and regions inhabited by ethnic-minority groups in allocating public educational resources, and implemented programs such as the National Compulsory Education in Poor Areas, Building Boarding Schools in Western China's Rural Areas, Modern Distance Education for Elementary and Middle Schools in Rural China, Renovating Junior Middle Schools in Central and Western China and the Plan for Special Education in Central and Western China, so as to narrow the gap between urban and rural areas and between different regions and guarantee that disadvantaged groups have access to education.

The financial aid system has been improved. The Chinese government adopts a national scholarship system, student subsidy system and national student loan system applicable to regular institutions of higher learning and vocational schools. It has provided more financial aid to ensure that students from families with financial difficulties can continue their studies. By the end of 2009 some 90 percent of students from secondary vocational schools and 20 percent of university students had received financial aid on a total of 43.06 million occasions. Since 2009 students from poor rural families studying at secondary vocational schools and students studying agriculture-related subjects in such schools have been exempted from tuitions.