In 2000, the country called on schools in the eastern regions to help their counterparts in the west in a bid to improve education in underdeveloped areas.

Nine eastern provinces and municipalities, such as Beijing and South China's Guangdong Province, have signed agreements to help certain western schools.

MOE statistics show that more than 1,700 teachers have been sent to western regions since 2000 and more than 1,000 teachers in western schools have been sent to their eastern counterparts for training.

The aid included over 1,100 computers and 2.9 million books. It also included funds to build over 10,422 teaching facilities.

In addition, eastern regions have offered financial help to more than 13,000 students from poverty-stricken families.

Helping the poor is not only a task for eastern schools, but also for large and medium-sized western cities, according to the MOE.

Since 2000, such western cities have donated more than 48 million yuan (US$5.8 million), 13,400 computers and 50,000 teaching facilities to schools in the poor regions of the provinces where the cities are located, said the ministry.

The cities have also sent more than 9,800 teachers to schools in the poor regions and trained over 3,700 teachers from those regions.

An MOE spokesperson said such efforts have improved the conditions of the western schools to some extent. Many of them have made use of the financial and material aid to purchase new laboratory facilities and books for their libraries.

With the help of eastern provinces, more schools are being built in western provinces.

For example, East China's Shandong Province donated more than 20 million yuan (US$2.4 million) to Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in 2000 to set up 100 primary schools there.

Interchanges between western and eastern schools have also helped the teachers from both regions upgrade their teaching abilities, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that preferential policies have been adopted by local governments to encourage teachers to take part in helping schools in poor western regions.

(China Daily October 8, 2002)