China Improves Education of Ethnic Minorities

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, June 13, 2002

China Improves Education of Ethnic Minorities

The Chinese Ministry of Education said Wednesday that 98 per cent of school age children in the regions where ethnic minorities predominate are now enrolled at school, equal to the national average.

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The Chinese Ministry of Education said Wednesday that 98 per cent of school age children in the regions where ethnic minorities predominate are now enrolled at school, equal to the national average.

The regions include Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Tibet and parts of Guizhou, Yunnan and Gansu provinces.

Xia Zhu, an official at the ministry, said at a Wednesday press conference that since 1990, the government has added 4 billion yuan (US$483.68 million) to the annual education budget of ethnic regions to assist education in the areas.

Xia said that with decades of hard work, a comprehensive educational system has been established and the regions now have kindergarten, elementary and high school education plus vocational and higher education.

Statistics from the ministry showed that 51 per cent of the 700 counties with regional autonomy have realized the nine-year compulsory education and have eliminated illiteracy among young people.

According to Xia, before the founding of New China in 1949, 80 per cent of the people in the ethnic minority areas in China were illiterate, and some ethnic groups in remote mountainous areas even counted by using beans and knotting ropes.

"There are now 100,000 elementary schools, 12,000 high schools and about 100 institutes of higher learning in the autonomous regions," said Xia, adding "China's 55 minority groups have all had students who have gone to university with some even gaining masters' degrees or doctorates."

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