Project Hope has enabled more than 2.6 million poor dropouts in China's rural areas to return to school and continue their education since its launch in October 1989, said Tu Meng, deputy secretary-general of the China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF).

Tu acknowledged that a total of 11,000 Project Hope primary schools have been set up in the countryside since the first one was opened in eastern Anhui Province in October, 1989.

Project Hope plans to finance 15,000 students from migrant farmer worker families in 27 cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Nanjing to go to school during the second half of this year.

The project has improved the education conditions in China's poverty-stricken areas and provided education opportunities to millions of needy school-age children, according to statistics from CYDF.

China faces serious challenges in providing universal education to its population of 1.3 billion and particularly to its rural population despite steady progress made in this field over the past years.

In some outlying mountain regions and areas inhabited by ethnic minorities, many children of needy families still cannot afford to go to school, and every year about one million pupils drop out of school to help support the family.

CYDF launched Project Hope in October 1989 with the purpose of helping poor school age children in rural areas to complete primary school education.

Since its inauguration, Project Hope has received more than 2.2 billion yuan (some US$265 million) in donations from domestic and overseas sources including individuals, government organizations and major transnational corporations.

(Xinhua News Agency October 14, 2004)