China studies practice of educ. law

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, has studied the implementation of the Law on Compulsory Education at a plenary session.

TheStandingCommitteeoftheNationalPeople'sCongress,
China'stoplegislature,hasstudiedtheimplementation
oftheLawonCompulsoryEducationataplenarysession.
(CCTV.com)

The focus of the meeting was the unbalanced distribution of educational resources.

Committee members agreed that the State Council's report highlighted the achievements of the compulsory education in China as well as pointing out issues to be resolved.

They said compulsory education has been funded by the national financial support mechanism. But they added that a gap remains between education in urban and rural areas as well as in eastern and western parts of the country.

Chen Ximing, NPC Standing Committee Member, said, "Few teachers want to go to rural areas because the salary is low. There's a big salary difference between the rural and urban areas. We need to change our policies to entice more young teachers to go to these regions."

Some Committee members point out that teachers' poor command of Mandarin in rural and ethnic areas is also affecting the quality of compulsory education.

Huang Yuejin, NPC Standing Committee Member, said, "Teaching in both Mandarin and in dialects is an area of concern for the teaching policy, which also includes raising funds and training teachers. Educational authorities, especially the central ones, should give more support to this policy."

Other members say the illegal practice of paying a fee to attend a better primary or a middle school in some big cities has become widespread. It's also affecting the balanced distribution of educational resources.