The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, studied the implementation of the Law on Labor Contract and the Law on Compulsory Education on Thursday at a plenary session.

The legislative session was attended by Wu Bangguo, chairman of the NPC National Committee, and presided over by Chen Zhili, vice chairwoman of the NPC Standing Committee.

Lu Yongxiang, vice chairman of the top legislature, read a report at the session on the practice of the Law on Compulsory Education, which was put into force in 1986 with an overall revision in 2006.

The top legislature checked the implementation of the law in 2007 and 2008, respectively.

Over the past two years, Lu said, the law has entered the stage of an overall popularization throughout the country as it has been fully supported by the state finance and the policy of free compulsory education has been achieved.

But there have been difficulties for the implementation of the law in rural areas, including the lack of funds and quality teachers and the existence of safety problems for school buildings and management in the countryside.

Hua Jianmin, vice chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, made a report on the implementation of the Law on Labor Contract, which went into effect on January 1, 2008. The top legislature checked the practice of the law from mid-September to mid-October, he said.

According to Hua, the implementation of the new law is good in general as the number of labor contracts signed has witnessed a remarkable rise this year and the rights of transient workers from rural areas have been better protected.

However, the practice of the law has met new problems since October, when the impacts of the current global financial crisis spread and the growth of world economy slowed down, he said.

Hua urged that more efforts should be made to publicize the law, so as to better implement it and give greater attention to the protection of laborers' rights.

At the session, the lawmakers also heard reports on the handling of 462proposals and 6,279 pieces of suggestions, comments and criticisms from NPC deputies during the First Session of the Eleventh NPC in March 2008.

Meanwhile, the meeting heard reports on the amendments of the Law on Earthquake Relief and the Patent Law. The NPC Law Committee suggested that the top legislature approve the two amended laws.

It also heard a report on Wu's recent visit to five African nations and the Commission of the African Union.

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2008)