IV. Adherence to promoting equity and protecting effectively the people's right to education

During the past two years, great efforts have been made to grant policy preference to the central and western regions, the rural areas and the disadvantaged schools, to narrow the gap in education development. Firstly, the regional gap was narrowed. The Collaborative Admission Plan for Supporting the Central and Western Region was continued to implement. In year 2012, a Special Admission Plan for Contract Students from Poor Areas was launched with an annual enrollment of about 10,000 students for the first-level undergraduate programs, which accounts for an increase of 10% in number of student enrollment from poor areas for first-level universities. Exploration was taken to formulate the Higher Education Rejuvenation Program for Central and Western China. The Program on Capacity Building of Higher Education Institutions in Central and Western China was launched. The partnership support for all higher education institutions in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Tibetan Autonomous Region was set up and secondary vocation education classes in inland China for Tibetan and Xinjiang Uygur students were set up, forming up a comprehensive system to provide middle school education, secondary vocational education, diploma education, undergraduate education and postgraduate education in inland China to train human resources at all levels and of various types for the ethnic minority regions. Secondly, the rural-urban gap was narrowed. In years 2010 and 2011, the Central Government has invested 5 billion RMB yuan and 16.8 billion RMB yuan to support the Project on Renovating Disadvantaged Compulsory Education Schools in Rural Areas and the second phase of the Project on Renovating School Buildings of Junior Middle Schools in Central and Western Regions. The Project of Special Teaching Positions for Rural Compulsory Education Schools has employed 110,768 teachers for over 20,000 rural schools in 21 provinces in central and western China. Since year 2010, the Central Government has invested 5.6 billion RMB yuan to Pilot Project on Building Temporary Dormitories for Teachers Serving in Remote and Disadvantaged Areas, which has newly built or renovated 105,000 flats. Thirdly, the gap between schools was narrowed. The State Council promulgated policy document on further promoting balanced development of compulsory education and regulating the distribution of compulsory education schools in rural areas. The Ministry of Education has signed MoUs with each province (region, municipality) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, to clarify the time table, roadmap and tasks for achieving balanced development of compulsory education in each area. Strict regulation was imposed on the procedure to reduce or merge compulsory education schools to ensure full engagement of local people and to monitor the decision-making process. Fourthly, the level of financial aid has been raised. Over the past two years, a number of projects has been set up to provide financial aid for pre-school education, to improve nutrition for rural compulsory education students, to provide financial aid to regular senior middle school students from families of economic difficulties, for veterans to receive higher education and for newly enrolled university students from families with economic difficulties. To date, a comprehensive financial aid system from preschool to postgraduate education has been established to support students from families with economic difficulties. In years 2010 and 2011, a total number of 156 million students from regular higher education institutions, secondary vocational schools, secondary middle schools and compulsory education schools were granted the financial aid, totaling 183.676 billion RMB yuan. Both figures marked historical records. In year 2011, the enrollment rate of the children of rural migrant workers in public schools reached 79.4%. Special attention was also given to left-behind children and efforts were made to solve their problem in attending schools, by building up an education and management network for them with active participation of local governments, communities, schools and families.