China's Education Receiving More Funds

Ministry of Education officials said Tuesday more will be spent on distance learning, the training of college teachers, and building laboratories and university-based technological parks.

But they did not disclose what the additional spending amounts to.

Officials from the ministry's Department for Science and Technology also said the China Education and Research Network, an Internet link for 700 universities and research institutes across the country, will begin using higher speed transmission lines late this year to offer more study opportunities with computerized learning programmes for young and adult people.

The ministry is also pushing to further hone the skills of college teachers deemed outstanding by encouraging them "to seek technological breakthroughs in programmes that are closely related to China's economic and social development and national security, including agriculture, energy, information technology, environment, population and health, space technology, transportation and water resources,'' said Zhang Raoxue, the department's director.

The plan's first phase will support 2,503 research programmes and finance 2,699 teachers.

The ministry will help major universities build more laboratories to develop technologies involving life sciences, biology, information technology and new materials science.

China currently has 150 State-level laboratories, and nearly 70 per cent of them are at Beijing and Qinghua universities and other major colleges and universities.

Last year, 246 overseas scholars and 282 domestic researchers collaborated on government-funded projects, the ministry's statistics indicated.

The central government has allocated 100 million yuan (US$12 million) to attract more domestic and overseas scholars for joint research this year, Zhang said.

One hundred university-based technological parks will be built in the next few years to nurture 10,000 high-tech firms, Zhang said.

China now has 15 university-based technology parks approved by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology.





People's Daily Online --- http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/