Circular: Funding for Rural Schools (1984)

Abstract

Abstract The development of education is a major issue bearing on the revitalization of China's economy, to which the people's governments at all levels should attach great importance. In the 1980s, primary education should be made universal in most rural areas, and where the economic conditions are relatively better, junior middle school education should be made universal in a planned way. At the same time, preschool education should be developed energetically; active efforts should be made to promote education in agricultural technology and to carry out structural reform in secondary school education in order to train qualified professional and technical personnel to meet the needs of economic development. At present, however, rural schools operate under poor conditions, they suffer from shortage of funds, and the pay of primary and secondary school teachers is low—all this has seriously hampered the development of rural educational undertakings. It is therefore necessary to adopt effective measures and solve this problem step by step. Alongside the yearly increase in the state's investment in the capital construction in education and in the operating fees for education, it is necessary at the same time to bring into full play the initiative of rural collective economic organizations and various other social forces in school sponsorship.