Education target

The new round of education reform is good news for Zhang and hundreds of thousands of teachers and students across China. In May, the State Council, China's Central Government, approved the National Outline for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010-20), stating that by the year 2012, China will raise the proportion of annual government education expenditure to 4 percent of the GDP. Two months later, the National Education Work Conference was held in Beijing, urging the all-round implementation of this national education reform outline and emphasizing that more public education resources should be found for rural, impoverished and ethnic areas.

"This (4 percent of GDP spending) increases the expenditure for education and guarantees the development of education, especially those weak areas such as rural education and vocational education," said Wang Feng, Researcher at National Center for Education Development Research in an interview with CRI Online. "Besides, the 4 percent goal can make governments at all levels attach more importance to education investment, and will influence how they think and act," he added.

However, not everyone is convinced. Many people doubt whether the "4 percent goal" can be realized. In 1993, China vowed to increase its education expenditure to 4 percent of GDP, but has failed to achieve the target.

Ding Xuedong, Vice Minister of Finance, told a press conference that he's confident about this target, while at the same time he admitted there are difficulties. "The proportion of education expenditure also depends on how much the fiscal spending accounts for the total GDP. In 2009, fiscal spending accounted for 20.4 percent of GDP, 10 percentage pointslower than the world average level. It puts a curb on education spending," said Ding.