BEIJING, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- China's education system has seen continued improvement in government efforts to reform and balance development in the sector, according to a report from the National Bureau of Statistics.

By the end of 2018, China had 267,000 public and private kindergartens across the country, up 4.6 percent year on year.

The number of children enrolled in the preschool system came in at 46.56 million, up 6.1 percent from a year earlier, the report noted.

Meanwhile, the graduation rate of China's nine-year compulsory education which covers primary school and junior high school, reached 94.2 percent in 2018, up 0.4 percentage points from 2017.

The country has also quickened the pace to improve high school education. China's gross enrollment ratio in high school level education reached 88.8 percent in 2018, up 0.5 percentage points from the previous year.

Regarding special education, China has 2,152 such schools in 2018 with 59,000 teachers, up 2.1 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively.

To further reform the education system, Chinese authorities in July released a new guideline to improve the quality of compulsory education.

The guideline aims to develop an education system that will foster citizens with an all-around moral, intellectual, physical and cultural grounding, in addition to a hard-working spirit.