Authorities in southwest China's Sichuan Province pledged to provide permanent schools for 95 percent of its students by the end of this year.

The promise was made at a provincial meeting on rebuilding schools in quake areas, held in the provincial capital Chengdu on Wednesday.

The 8.0 magnitude quake on May 12 last year left more than 80,000 people dead or missing. It also destroyed thousands of schools across the province.

Huang Yanrong, deputy governess of Sichuan, said at least 4,553 schools would need to be rebuilt.

State coffers will fund construction of 3,340 schools. Another1,213 schools will be built with the financing by the province.

Reconstruction of 2,811 schools with central government financing will be completed by the year end, said Huang.

No goals were stated for schools on the provincial list.

A senior official surnamed Dai with Sichuan Provincial Education Department cited a money shortage as the biggest problem in the way of completing school reconstruction work.

"Completion of reconstruction of all quake-destroyed schools will need more than 60 billion yuan (about US$8.82 billion)," said Dai.

The province has so far earmarked 11.7 billion yuan for school reconstruction.

To date, 223 permanent schools on the state's list and 325 on the provincial list have been rebuilt.

(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2009)