China plans to arrange a 5 billion yuan national debt fund for a program to build boarding schools in western rural areas, to ensure that objectives of nine-year compulsory education are reached on schedule, as revealed by the National Development and Reform Commission. A sum of 1.5 billion yuan has been put in this year to complete more than 2.2 million square meters of school buildings.

For one reason or another, unsafe school buildings have never ceased to exist in Chinese countryside. A survey showed that by the end of 2002, there were still 7.6 percent school buildings remained unsafe, including 40 million square meters of school houses ready to collapse.

A total fund of 10 billion yuan will be put into this construction program, according to which all seriously dangerous school buildings will be basically eliminated next year.

Since 2001, China has launched three major programs for ensuring compulsory education in rural areas, focusing respectively on renovating unsafe school buildings, constructing new boarding schools and framing distance education, which will cost a total special fund of 24 billion yuan, including about 12 billion national debt capital.