BEIJING, March 5 (UPI) -- China's premier has said the country will provide students from poor families in rural areas with free textbooks and exempt them from paying miscellaneous fees.
Premier Wen Jiabao said Saturday in his government work report that the policy, to start this year, will apply to 14 million rural students in the nine-year compulsory education stage in 592 counties, reported government-run news agency Xinhua.
Wen said the policy will expand in 2007 to include all rural students "so that all students from poor families are able to finish the compulsory education."
"We will genuinely make education a strategic priority," Wen said. "We will improve the mechanism to ensure funding for education, with government investment as the mainstay."
