Poverty Alleviation of Ministry of Education

　　【Overview】  In 2011, the Ministry of Education actively supported the education in impoverished areas, continued to issue preferential policies for the preschool education, compulsory education, vocational education and higher education in impoverished areas and increased investment to guarantee the smooth implementation of key problem tackling for compulsory education, the renovation of junior middle school buildings in rural areas and the secondary vocational education of students from needy families in rural areas.

　　【Poverty alleviation by education】 1. Improvement of education subsidy policies at all levels. About 130 million rural students receiving the compulsory education were exempted from the tuition and fees and about 30 million rural boarding students were exempted from lodging fees. The living subsidy for boarding students from rural needy families was improved by one Yuan per person per day, reaching four Yuan for each primary school student and five Yuan for each junior middle school student, respectively 1000 Yuan and 1250 Yuan a year. In the central and western regions, 12.28 million rural students enjoyed the subsidy policy. Meanwhile, the government launched the program of nutrition improvement for rural students receiving the compulsory education and provided nutrition subsidy of three Yuan per student per day for the rural students receiving the compulsory education in 680 pilot counties, benefiting more than 26 million students, and central financial funds of 16 billion Yuan is provided per year. In addition, the central government arranged grant-in-aid of 7.83 billion Yuan for secondary vocational education to subsidize about 9.06 million students, arranged 4.96 billion Yuan of funds for free secondary vocational education to benefit 3.95 million students, and allocated 4.49 billion Yuan of grant-in-aid for high school students to benefit 4.8 million students.

2. Central financial funds for rural compulsory education. From 2010 to 2012, the central government invested 35.25 billion Yuan to implement the “Program for the Renovation of Economically Weak Schools to Support Rural Compulsory Education” to solve the problems of poor teaching equipment, lack of books, the “big classes” and poor conditions for boarding and schooling in rural areas in the central and western regions. In 2011, the central government issued 8.194 billion Yuan of special funds to renovate the rural compulsory schools under poor conditions, issued 3 billion Yuan to implement phase II of renovation of junior middle school buildings in the rural areas of central and western regions, and continued to improve the dinning and boarding conditions of junior middle school students in rural areas (including towns and counties), especially boarding students to eliminate the phenomenon of “big bed”, off-campus house ranting and scarce capacity of the school for food supply. The government gave priority to key counties for national poverty alleviation and development, border counties and the counties in Tibetan areas in the allocation of projects. A total of 10 billion Yuan was allocated for the safe projects of primary and secondary school building to support the impacted areas prone to earthquake of seven or above degrees. The central government allocated financial funds of 1 billion Yuan for the implementation of the “planning for the renovation of high schools” to support the contiguous poor areas with particular difficulties in 12 western provinces, especially the high schools in minority areas to improve the schooling conditions, invested 1.2 billion Yuan of special funds to support the construction of 700 vocational education and training bases, giving priority to western regions; issued 9.7 billion Yuan of special funds to support the rural preschool education in the central and western regions; and allocated 485 million Yuan for the development of the bilingual kindergartens and 150 million Yuan for the schools with both minority and Han students.

3. Counterpart support for higher education. In 2011, it printed the “Opinions of the Ministry of Education on Further Strengthening and Promoting the Counterpart Support for Higher Education in Tibet Autonomous Region” (Jiao Gao [2011] No. 2). A total of 161 higher schools were involved in the activity, including 94 aiding universities and 67 recipient universities, covering 18 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

4. Opening of Tibet classes and Xinjiang classes in inland areas to improve education quality. In 2011, Tibet classes had 14,000 students in school across China, Xinjiang classes had about 24,000 students, inland secondary vocational schools had 8700 students and they fostered lots of various talents for Tibet and Xinjiang

　　【Poverty alleviation by training】  In 2011, through holding rural labor transfer trainings for 15 million person-times and rural practical technical trainings for 42 million person-times, it improved the transfer of rural surplus labors to other industries in impoverished areas and improved farmers’ ability to get rich, making a contribution to the improvement of the people’s livelihood in impoverished areas.

　　【Fixed-point poverty alleviation】 According to the arrangement of LGOP, the Ministry of Education helped the poverty alleviation and development of Qinglong County, Laiyuan County and Wuyi County in Hebei. In 2011, the Ministry of Education finished the task of fixed-point poverty reduction.

　　First, the Ministry of Education went on with the support to the rural education in Qinglong County, Laiyuan County and Wuyi County in Hebei. It 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, the Ministry of Education organized the relief to impoverished families and impoverished teachers. Before the spring festival of 2011, the party committee and labor union of Ministry of Education’s general office organized Spring Festival Warmth event and raised 210,000 Yuan, 3 division heads of the Ministry of Education led the teams to greet impoverished families and impoverished teachers in Qinglong County, Laiyuan County and Wuyi County. In addition, the Ministry of Education combined greeting and poverty alleviation, organized labors from 100 impoverished families in each country to receive vocational technical trainings of electricians, electrogas welding, lathe workers and the use and maintenance of agricultural machinery, and provided training subsidy of 500 Yuan for each person. Third, the Ministry of Education coordinated the People's Education Press to invest 300,000 Yuan for the “Hope Online School” of Qinglong County and invited the program of “Experience of Making Money” of CCTV 7 to make propaganda for Qinglong County.

　　(Ministry of Education)

　　Poverty Alleviation of Ministry of Science & Technology

　　【Overview】 2011 is the first year for the implementation of the “12th Five-Year Plan” and the first year for a new round of poverty alleviation in the new era after we successfully completed the tasks of the “Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China’s Rural Areas (2001-2010)”. Under the guidance and the overall arrangements of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (LGOP), adhering to the guidance of Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of “Three Representatives”, the Ministry of Science and Technology implemented the scientific outlook on development, gave full to its technological advantages and earnestly implemented the spirit of the “Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China’s Rural Areas (2001-2010)” and the “Notice on Further Promoting the Fixed-pointed Poverty Alleviation”. Making use of its advantages, under the guiding ideology of “supporting industrial development by services, highlighting the concept of innovation, promoting the improvement of livelihoods to boost local development”, based on the current situation of economic and social development of poor areas and the key areas for future development, in accordance with the principle of “doing practical things and promoting the innovation and entrepreneurship in grassroots areas with great love for revolutionary base areas”, it made steady progress in fixed-point poverty alleviation and industrial poverty alleviation and made a positive contribution to the industrial and agricultural development and economic and social development of impoverished regions.

　　【Field research in impoverished regions】  The Ministry of Science and Technology attached great importance to field research for poverty reduction by science and technology. In 2011, it sent 437 people to carry out field research in the poor counties and organized 17 division heads to study and carry out field research in the poor counties to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of CPC with practical action. Through conducting field research, it got to know the common problems and prominent contradictions facing the poverty alleviation and development in poor areas, had a good understanding of the needs of impoverished regions for poverty alleviation and development and put forward opinions and suggestions for the development of the counties involved in fixed-point poverty alleviation.

　　【Poverty alleviation by training】 To solve the low quality and weak consciousness of science and technology of the masses and cadres of poverty-stricken areas, combining field lectures and distance training, it organized a series of scientific and technological trainings. On April 9, the “Seminar on Long-distance Training for Poverty Alleviation by Science and Technology” was convened to make deployments for ten distance training classes for poverty alleviation by science and technology for 24,000 person-times. On July 8, it signed the Memorandum of Understanding for 2011 Cooperation with US Pfizer Animal Health China Company and designed the mid- and long-term training program of the two sides. In 2011, it organized 16 “technical trainings for scientific breeding” and directly trained more than 1,000 breeding households, further enhancing the ability of the masses and cadres in poor areas to shake off poverty and get rich by science and technology relying on themselves.

　　【Publicity of poverty alleviation by science and technology】 In order to mobilize more forces to get involved in the poverty alleviation and development by science and technology and enhance the influence of poverty alleviation and development by science and technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology continued to intensify the publicity of poverty alleviation and development by science and technology, participated in the “Exhibition on China's Poverty Reduction Achievements” and set up the pavilion of the “Rural Technology Information Service Station” to publicize the achievements of poverty reduction by science and technology. It submitted 11 briefings on poverty alleviation and development by science and technology and printed one monograph on poverty alleviation and development by science and technology titled “China’s Rural Science and Technology”, making the anti-poverty work by science and technology enjoy popular support with wide attention from all circles of society.

　　【Implementation of scientific and technological projects】 Increase efforts on poverty alleviation by project construction. In accordance with the requirements of “model transformation, structural adjustment, livelihood improvement and ecological construction”, focusing on boosting the development of leading industries and rural informationization and the implementation of sci-tech special commissioner system, the Ministry of Science and Technology increased support for impoverished regions and raised the financial aid standard for each science and technology-based poverty alleviation project from 400,000 Yuan to 1 million Yuan. In 2011, it provided guidance for the poor regions to apply for 29 spark program (poverty alleviation by science and technology) projects with investment of 11.45 million Yuan; helped Jinggang Mountain and Anzhai to strive for 39 projects, including the “Golden Sun Demonstration Projects”, the informationization of rural medical treatment and technological service for industrial zone with investment of more than 30 million Yuan through the national “863” program and other plans; and supported the management and implementation of the “Ecological Agriculture Technology Demonstration and Promotion Project in Bijie Experimental Zone” with investment of 3 million Yuan. The implementation of these projects played an important role in boosting local economic and social development.

　　【Social poverty alleviation by science and technology】  It successively organized the platform center of the Ministry of Science and Technology and No. 301 Hospital of PLA to set up the three-level rural medical and health service network in the poor areas and a number of demonstration zones. In order to improve the level of informationization of the poverty-stricken areas, the Ministry of Science and Technology actively coordinated various parties to donate 300 notebook computers for impoverished regions to support the rural informationization and the innovation and entrepreneurship work of science and technology correspondents. Through its positive coordination, a number of enterprises and units donated some relief materials and education funds worth 10 million Yuan to the poor counties, including vehicles, LED displays, TV sets, solar water heaters, telestar receiving equipments and glucose meters, making a contribution to the improvement of the conditions for technological work, the infrastructure of the senior’s homes, the county, town and village-level medical conditions and the school environment of local areas.