The country spends five times more on administration than education, a situation that must be corrected, says a signed article in Qilu Evening News. An excerpt follows:

China now ranks as one of the countries with the lowest education input and highest administrative spending.

It did not realize the promised goal of education input taking up 4 per cent of its GDP by the end of last century.

However, in the 25 years from 1978 to 2003, the country's administrative management spending increased 87 fold, with an annual increase of 23 percent in recent years.

Since its initiation of the reform and opening-up program, the country has witnessed a rapid build-up and expansion of its economic muscle and scale. In this context, its administrative expenditures have been rapidly increasing, while input into education has grown relatively slowly.

The characteristics of the system and people's narrow mindsets have resulted in such abnormal developments.

Because of system defects, low education input will not directly bring about negative impacts for local governments in the short term.

As a result, they prefer to put more money into sectors that can more easily showcase their performances.

Also, the tendency of making education a business in recent years has made some local governments regard education as a profitable industry, thus giving them cause to tighten their purse strings.

It is different with administrative budgets, which are made mainly by government departments themselves. More input can better their working conditions and improve their treatment.

In 2005 alone, the spending of government departments at all levels on transportation, dining and inspection tours with public money amounted to US$74 billion, five times as much as is spent on education, according to the China Youth Daily.

Such misbalanced spending should be corrected in a timely manner.

(China Daily March 9, 2006)