China vows to invest more in pre-school education

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The State Council, or China's Cabinet, vowed on Wednesday to increase financial support for the country's pre-school education system while improving the evaluation system for primary and middle school teachers.

According to a statement released after a State Council meeting presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao, the central government will allocate 50 billion yuan (7.84 billion U.S. dollars) over the next five years to support pre-school education in rural areas facing inadequate educational resources.

Efforts to boost pre-school education in the country's less-developed central and western regions will include transforming unused school buildings into kindergartens, encouraging schools with rich resources to set up kindergartens, and recruiting volunteer teachers to visit various kindergartens on a regular basis, said the statement.

The meeting encouraged more private funds to invest in setting up kindergartens and promised to subsidize those offer low-cost services to children of rural migrant workers.

Local governments were told to offer subsidies to impoverished children, orphans and handicapped children who meet difficulties in receiving a pre-school education, starting from the upcoming autumn semester in September.

"Local governments should shoulder the main responsibility for developing pre-school education. They should invest more and draft preferential policies for pre-school-aged children in order to ensure that pre-school education covers both urban and rural areas," the statement said.

Also during Wednesday's meeting, the government made plans to push forward the reform of a work evaluation system for primary and middle school teachers nationwide to include more cities within a year.

The reform, which has been in a trial phase in three Chinese cities in Shandong, Jilin and Shaanxi Provinces for two years, incorporates professional ethics, individual capabilities, teaching results and peer reviews into the evaluation of the work of teachers at the primary and middle school levels.

Under the system, these teachers will be divided into five levels that are linked with their salaries and reflect their work proficiency in the education field.

According to the statement, the new evaluation system can also be applied in vocational middle schools, kindergartens and special education schools.

"The reform is a key measure to boost the professional status of primary and middle school teachers while encouraging more high level talents to participate in primary and middle school education," the statement said.