China's central budget will allocate four billion yuan (US$500 million) to impoverished secondary vocational education students over the next five years.

Wu Qidi, vice minister of education, said that over the five years, 800 million yuan will be used to help around 800,000 students each year.

Statistics from the Ministry of Education show that out of the 16 million students who are receiving secondary vocational education, 30 percent have financial difficulties.

The ministry has decided to expand the enrollment of secondary vocational schools to 8 million in 2010, with most of them from poverty-stricken families.

"Many of them cannot afford tuition fees," Wu said. "It's, therefore, an urgent task for us to help them out by outlining financial aid programs."

Ding Xuedong, official with the Ministry of Finance, said the students from low-income families could submit applications and documents to their schools proving their family economic background.

"Each of them will get a stipend of 1,000 yuan a year after local financial and educational departments have approved their applications," Ding said.

The students could also apply for scholarship, special loans and reductions and exemption of tuition fees, according to Ding.

China is suffering an acute shortage of skilled labor as the country is becoming the world's biggest manufacturing base.

There are 330,000 job vacancies for skilled workers, such as millers and welders, each year in Beijing, but there is a dearth of qualified people. The situation is the same all over the country.

While university graduates have been scrambling for jobs in recent years, the employment rate of secondary vocational school graduates remains at a high level.

From 2001 to 2005, the employment rate has stayed at 95 percent on average, and the average salary of graduates of secondary vocational schools is higher than college graduates this year in the cities of Harbin, Hangzhou and Chengdu.

The central government will invest 10 billion yuan in the infrastructure of vocational education over the next five years and local governments will also spend more than 20 billion yuan in the initiative, according to Wu.

(Xinhua News Agency August 18, 2006)