Funding for education in Shanghai increased by an average 11 percent last year because of the city governments' extra fiscal allocation to suburban districts, the city's annual education development report said.

 

However there remains a huge disparity in the amount of money various districts spend on students, despite the government's attempts to correct this.

 

About half the local primary schools and kindergartens have oversized classes, according to the report released by the Shanghai Education Commission yesterday.

 

Comprehensive education funding reached an average of 75,851 yuan (US$10,027) for each student in each of the city's 18 districts and Chongming County last year. Nearly 63 percent of this went to compulsory education including primary schools and secondary schools.

 

The country's compulsory education laws stipulate that spending on education must rise every year by more than a government's fiscal revenue growth.

 

It's the first time all the 18 districts and Chongming County have met the requirements of the law, commission officials announced.

 

In 2005, Fengxian, Baoshan, Songjiang, Nanhui, Jading and Yangpu failed to increase funding for compulsory education by a larger percent than their fiscal revenues increase.

 

"We are glad to see all the districts and Chongming County meet the requirement, although the amounts spent on each student are still very varied," said Yang Guoshun, director of the commission's inspection division.

 

The report suggests that downtown Luwan District surpassed Jing'an District to have the largest increased budget last year, spending up to 10,585 yuan on each primary school student.

 

Chongming County replaced suburban Fengxian District at the bottom of the list with an increased expenditure of 1,157 yuan per student.

The report also said that 55 percent of classes in primary schools and 41 percent of kindergarten classes were oversized, especially in suburbs with a large migrant population.

 

Yin Houqing, the vice commission director, said the unbalanced education resources between downtown and suburban districts was a problem the government has been tackling in recent years.

 

From last year, the commission embarked upon a plan to allocate 300 million yuan each year over the next three consecutive years to aid schools in remote rural areas.

 

(Shanghai Daily August 10, 2007)