100 Million Rural Students Get Free Textbooks

Source: China Daily/ HK Edition

Rural students in Guangdong Province now don't have to pay for textbooks from this semester, because the government has earmarked 4.6 billion yuan to buy books.

More than 100 million students in the rural areas will be benefited.

Apart from textbooks, the province will also cover the cost of cassettes and maps of academic use.

The move followed the exemption of extra fees for these students last year, making Guangdong the first mainland province to provide free education to all its rural primary and secondary school students.

The mainland has implemented a nine-year free education system. Students don't need to pay tuition fees, but most of them still need to pay for textbook fees and extra fees.

However, urban students in Guangdong now cannot enjoy the same benefit as their rural counterparts, because the policy aims to first alleviate financial burden of relatively poor rural families who have to pay 100 yuan a year to buy textbooks for a primary school student and 180 yuan for a secondary school student.

Describing the new policy as a significant move, Liu Yumin, vice-director of Guangdong Provincial Education Bureau, said two-thirds of the students in the province can enjoy absolutely free education now.

"With the policy in place, Guangdong pioneers in the field of educational reform," Liu said. (By Michelle Leung)

Editor: Carrot Chan