Inspectors from China's education watchdog will fan out across the country to conduct safety checkups at kindergartens, middle and primary schools.

"Five inspection teams have already been set up," a spokesman with the Ministry of Education said in Beijing on Sunday.

The inspection will focus on overhauling "illegal school shuttle buses" and "unqualified kindergartens," said the spokesman, adding that dormitories, public toilets and other facilities in rural schools would be targeted to prevent trampling incidents.

The inspection teams will also check up the staff teaching qualifications, especially those in rural areas, the spokesman said.

A spate of on-campus tragedies has prompted the ministry to issue several notices advocating local educational institutions to weed out hidden dangers.

In a recent incident, a two-year-old boy in southern China's Guangdong Province died of suffocation. He was confined in a school bus for seven hours on Sept. 17 when temperatures topped 34 degrees Celsius.

(Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2007)