The Education and Youth Affairs Bureau told Xinhua that more than 17,000 primary and high school students were covered by the program, an increase from last year's beneficiaries.

The subsidies were used either as tuition fees or daily costs of the needy students. In addition, the SAR government provided stationery and other objects for them.

Since Macao returned to the motherland three years ago, the SAR government has been more actively involved in the promotion of school education, by putting in more resources and upgrading the caliber of local teachers.

Macao now practices a system of ten-year free education, which covers preparatory courses of primary school to the third year of high school. There are more than 100 schools in the SAR.

(Xinhua News Agency November 14, 2002)