The head of China's Ministry of Education, Mr. Zhou, said that six percent of China's districts still do not have universal education.

According to statistics, 94% of the entire country has realized universal education, which means that teenage illiteracy has basically been eliminated. The remaining 6% are primarily found in the old, the young, the marginal and the poor, mostly living in the Western region.

Mr. Zhou admitted that providing nine years of free education to these districts would be a tough nut to crack. But the current Chinese government has made up its mind to implement universal education in the West by 2007.