Minister: China to phase in free vocational secondary education for all

BEIJING, April 22 (Xinhua) -- China hopes to provide free vocational
secondary education "in the near future" to boost development and better satisfy
market demand, Education Minister Zhou Ji said Wednesday.

He did not give a detailed timetable, but Zhou said that "as a starting
point, the government would offer free secondary vocational education to poor
rural students and those who majored in agriculture-related subjects from this
year."

The policy would be "gradually" applied to all students, he said in a
report to the eighth session of the 11th National People's Congress Standing
Committee for review.

The government has allocated 40 billion yuan (about 5.86 billion U.S.
dollars) to subsidize poor students in secondary vocational schools since 2006,
with 18 billion yuan from the central budget and 22 billion yuan from local
governments, he said.

China had 14,767 secondary vocational schools with 20.56 million students
in 2008.