Schooling for people aged 15 and older in rural China has climbed from 4.7 years to 6.85 years, marking a noticeable leap in the country's efforts to reduce rural illiteracy.

By the end of 2001, over 91 percent of Chinese had received officially required Nine-year Compulsive Education which includes six years of primary education and three years of junior high schooling, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Education.

In rural areas, over 13 million students have graduated from technical secondary schools during the past five years, some 12.7 million illiterates have learned to read and 460 million rural workers have been trained on short-term projects.

State Councilor Chen Zhili attributed the progress to the country's ongoing rural taxation reform, which required county governments to increase their financial input on the education cause.

In 2002, the country's budget investment on rural nine-year compulsive education has increased by 20.4 billion yuan (about US$2.46 billion), which effectively eased the capital shortage on rural education, Chen said while inspecting the work in northeast China's Jilin Province.

To stop the arbitrary collection of tuition fees which may increase the burden of rural families, over 663 poverty-stricken counties have set rules to standardize their tuition charges in both primary and junior high schools.

(Xinhua News Agency July 21, 2003)