This goal was finally reached in 2012, according to Finance Minister Xie Xuren at last year's national fiscal work meeting.

 

　　Zhong Binglin, Chairman of Chinese Society of Education and a member of the country's top advisor body, believes the overall level of education in the country has improved in the past few years.

 

　　"China has universalized its fundamental education and popularized its higher education. There have been different degrees of improvement in conditions and internal systematic construction in schools in both rural and urban areas, from primary schools to high schools. And these schools started to treat personnel training as their central task."

 

　　However, there is still a serious lack of educational resources in some under-developed parts of China.

 

　　Tu Xue is Secretary-general of a volunteer organization called Our Free Sky, which is working to improve the education and well-being of children in rural areas.

 

　　He says an example of this is Sichuan Province.

 

　　"There are 164 schools, most of which have only one or two teachers. And those teachers are mainly substitute teachers. There's no electricity or roads to the schools, and you can only get drinking water from several kilometers away."

 

　　According to Zhong Binglin from Chinese Society of Education, the lack of facilities is much easier to improve as long as the government can guarantee educational investment in these areas.

 

　　But he says the investment increase cannot solve all the problems.

 

　　"In order to improve the educational level in western China, the key point lies in the team building of teachers—how to improve the ability and quality of existing teachers through in-service training. And we should improve the economic and social status of teachers to attract more excellent university and master graduates to teach in these less-developed areas."

 

　　The expert says that government support alone is not enough to solve the problem. More efforts are needed from various circles of society.

 

　　Former NBA star Yao Ming, a newly elected CPPCC member, is calling for the government to loosen its policy so that more NGOs can come to help.

 

　　"Many people are willing to help, but different kinds of regulations hinder their way. If the government can adopt more flexible policies, letting more NGOs play their roles in the problem, I believe the result would be better."

 

　　For CRI, I'm Qi Zhi.