Poverty Alleviation of Ministry of Education

　　【Overview】  In 2009, the Ministry of Education supported the education in impoverished areas actively, provided preferential policies of compulsory education and vocational education, etc, for impoverished areas, and invested more to assure the 9-year compulsory education in poverty-stricken areas, the rebuilding of rural primary schools’ buildings and the secondary vocational education of students from poor rural families, etc.

　　【Investments in education of impoverished areas】  1. Improve various education subsidy policies at all levels. The Ministry of Education invested 78.4 billion Yuan, covering 182 million students, including compulsory education subsidy of 2.8 billion Yuan to exempt over 160 million compulsory education students’ school sundry fees in urban and rural areas across China, national secondary vocational education subsidy of about 1.8 billion Yuan to subsidize 12 million students, secondary vocational education tuition replacement of 2.4 billion Yuan arranged by the central finance for 4 million students, various higher education scholarship and subsidy of 30 billion Yuan for 5.92 million college students.

2. Support the infrastructure construction of primary and middle schools in the central areas and the west. The total investment was 18.9 billion Yuan, including 1.34 billion Yuan for the construction of boarding schools in 42 countries, which have not popularized 9-year compulsory education in 5 western provinces, 5 billion Yuan for the rebuilding of middle schools’ buildings in the country in the central areas and the west invested by the central government (mainly into key counties for national poverty alleviation and development, autonomous counties, old revolutionary base counties and frontier counties), 8 billion Yuan for the safe buildings of primary and middle schools across China with stress on population-dense areas threatened by earthquake of level 7 or above in the central areas and the west, 5.1 billion Yuan for the rebuilding of rural compulsory education campus in the central areas and the west invested by the central finance, 3 billion Yuan for the basic capacity construction of secondary vocational education with some invested into the central areas and the west, 400 million Yuan for the construction of special education schools in the central areas and the west, 500 million Yuan for bilingual kindergartens in Xinjiang and 50 million Yuan for the combination of schools of Han and minorities.

3. Provide Tibet classes and Xinjiang classes in inland areas, improve education quality. In 2009, Tibet classes had 19000 students in school across China, Xinjiang classes had about 20000 students, and they fostered lots of various talents for Tibet and Xinjiang.

　　【Poverty alleviation through training】  In 2009, China provided rural labor transfer skill training for 15 million person-times and rural practical skill training for 42 million person-times to improve the transfer of rural surplus labors to other industries in impoverished areas and improve farmers’ ability to get rich, and contributed to the improvement of the people’s livelihood in impoverished areas.

　　【Fixed-point poverty alleviation】  According to the arrangement of LGOP, Ministry of Education help the poverty alleviation and development of Qinglong County, Laiyuan County and Wuyi County in Hebei. In 2009, Ministry of Education finished fixed-point poverty education.

　　First, the Ministry of Education went on with the support to the rural education in Qinglong County, Laiyuan County and Wuyi County in Hebei. Ministry of Education arranged primary and middle school construction projects for the three counties, subsidized each county with 600,000 Yuan, and reinforced the primary and middle schools’ running ability in the three counties. Second, Ministry of Education organized the relief to impoverished families and impoverished teachers. Before the spring festival of 2009, the party committee and labor union of Ministry of Education’s general office organized Spring Festival Warmth event and raised 150,000 Yuan, 3 division heads of Ministry of Education led the teams to greet impoverished families and impoverished teachers in Qinglong County, Laiyuan County and Wuyi County. In addition, Ministry of Education combined greeting and poverty alleviation, provided vocational skill training for labors from 60 impoverished families in each country to help them with employment transfer and help the families to get rich, and provided training subsidy of 500 Yuan for each person. Third, entire village advancement. The Ministry of Education has planned the poverty alleviation projects of three years (2008-2010) in the three fixed-point poverty alleviation counties, and handled entire-village advancement in 149 villages in the three counties in the three years. Now, entire village advancement is going on as planned. Fourth, raise social funds. Ministry of Education organized the Zigen Fund to subsidize Qinglong County with 1 million Yuan for labor transfer training and practical skill training for farmers from impoverished families, culture, health and other events in the countryside.

(Chen Jianhua, Zhang Zhaowen, the Ministry of Education)