The aid included over 1,100 computers, 2.9 million books and funds to build over 10,422 teaching facilities.

In addition, eastern regions have offered financial help to more than 13,000 students from poverty-stricken families and sent more than 1,700 teachers to the west.

In 2000, the country called on schools in the eastern regions to help some poor western schools in a bid to improve education in underdeveloped areas.

Nine eastern provinces and municipalities, such as Beijing and South China's Guangdong Province, have signed agreements to help a number of western schools.

With the help of eastern provinces, more schools are being built in western provinces.

According to the MOE, helping the poor is not only a task for eastern schools, but also for large and medium-sized western cities.

Since 2000, such western cities have donated more than 48 million yuan (US$5.8 million), 13,400 computers and 50,000 teaching facilities to schools in the poor regions of the provinces where the cities are located, said the ministry.

The cities have also sent more than 9,800 teachers to schools in the poor regions and trained over 3,700 teachers from those regions.

Such efforts have improved the conditions of the western schools to some extent. Many of them have made use of the financial and material aid to purchase new laboratory facilities and books for their libraries.

(People’s Daily October 8, 2002)