Central Government to Spend More on Rural Compulsory Education, Regulate Fees

The State Council approved in principle on January 4 an amended draft of the Compulsory Education Law to ensure central and provincial government funding for compulsory education and to standardize collection of school fees, according to a January 4 Xinhua article. Students in poor rural areas will benefit from the new law first, and officials hope to implement free compulsory education nationwide by 2010, according to a February 2 Xinhua report.

County governments currently are responsible for funding nine years of compulsory education, but lack sufficient resources, in part as a result of the elimination of the agricultural tax, according to comments of State Council member Liu Bin in a January 18 People’s Daily article. The new law mandates that the central government disburse education funds to provincial governments, which will then provide the funding to ensure that county governments make the necessary outlays for education. Central and provincial government oversight will deter inappropriate use of the funds, according to Liu.

Wang Xuming, spokesperson for the Ministry of Education (MOE), explained that the MOE will continue to remove rural school principals who collect fees other than the costs of textbooks, workbooks, and accommodations, according to a January 26 China Daily article. Schools sometimes overcharge students for textbooks and school supplies or levy fees for non-essential items such as uniforms or bedding, Wang said. Since 2002, the MOE has removed almost 400 school principals for imposing arbitrary fees, and complaints of fee collecting dropped by almost 30 percent between 2004 and 2005, according to statistics from the State Bureau for Letters and Calls quoted in a January 25 China News article posted on the Procuratorate Daily Web site.

The State Administration of Taxation issued a notice in January that schools are now required to pay taxes on arbitrary fees they collect, according to a February 6 China Daily article. This new policy could have the unintended effect of legitimizing the arbitrary fees, says Hong Chengwen, a professor at Beijing Normal University.

A survey published in the China Youth Daily on February 8 found that paying for education is the leading cause of poverty for urban and rural residents, ahead of medical expenses and the cost of caring for the elderly. According to MOE statistics for 2004, 99 percent of boys and 98.9 percent of girls were enrolled in primary school. Girls made up 88 percent of the 2.5 percent of students who dropped out of middle school. The national enrollment rate for upper middle school students was 48 percent.