Northwest China's
Qinghai Province has announced it is allocating more than 1.4
billion yuan (around US$173 million) in the coming five years to
improve minority education.
The funds will be spent in improving the nine-year compulsory
education, senior high school education and vocational education in
the autonomous ethnic prefectures of Haibei, Hainan, Huangnan,
Guoluo, Yushu and Haixi, said Qinghai Provincial Education
Bureau.
The province also plans to build and enlarge 120 boarding
schools in the six prefectures from the year 2007 and to provide
subsidies to poor ethnic minority students there who study in
vocational schools, senior high schools and colleges.
Meanwhile, Qinghai pledges to train 7,000 primary and middle
school teachers and build 700 laboratories, language labs and
library rooms in the schools in the ethnic minority
prefectures.
Amid other efforts, Qinghai also pledges to cut its illiterate
rate among young adults to less than five percent and to provide
more than 95 percent of its school-age children with access to
compulsory education.
(Xinhua News Agency February 25, 2006)