Despite the country's vast rural area having 64 per cent of China's population, education has not been properly emphasized there.

Chinese students get an average schooling of eight years, which is above the world average. However, there are also 85 million illiterate citizens -- three-quarters of whom live in the western rural area.

And 327 counties in the western region fail to enforce the compulsory nine-year education system, with 60 counties unable to even ensure a full primary school education.

The inappropriate distribution of government funding is one of the important factors behind regional imbalances in the development of education.

Compulsory education in rural China was funded by local counties, townships and villages in the past, leading to sharp differences in school budgets depending on local tax incomes.

And abolishing the special surcharge on rural education in March last year as part of a tax-for-fee reform has eased farmers' burdens, but at the same time it has weakened funding for rural education.

Two months later, county-level governments were assigned control over compulsory education and given explicit directions in terms of their investment and management responsibilities.

But county-level governments, especially in poverty-stricken areas, are actually unable to shoulder the financial responsibilities.

Transfer payments from the central government have increased greatly compared with the past, but the ratio remains minimal.

Rural schools still face financial difficulties, which directly lead to the loss of teachers and the worsening of conditions.

The central government made the plan to increase the educational expenditure to 4 per cent of the gross domestic product five years ago, but the aim has not been achieved by now.

Insufficient funding for education hurts the country's overall development.

The financing of compulsory education in the country's rural regions needs to become a top priority immediately.

(China Daily HK Edition September 17, 2003)