From Chinese Press

Free education not a problem

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-22 07:53

Allocating enough funds to provide free education to children is no longer a problem for governments in China, but many local officials don't want to do so because it doesn't increase their chances of promotion, says an article on china.com.cn. Excerpts:

The Wuqi local government in Shanxi province recently promised to provide free education to all children in the county. Seeing this as a move that would force them to allocate more funds to their education budgets, some other local governments said they wouldn't be able to follow Wuqi's example. They said they don't want to promise the people what they cannot do for lack of funds.

In response, Wuqi's Party secretary Feng Zhendong said free education is not a question of whether local governments have enough funds to provide it but whether they want to allocate enough funds for this very important cause.The logic behind Feng's argument is, local authorities have been focusing on "hard indices" like economic development and social stability because they increase their chances of promotion. Therefore, they have little interest in working for a noble cause like free education.

(China Daily 07/22/2010 page9)