Students from Sichuan quake epicenter to return for new terms

Special Report:Reconstruction After Earthquake

CHENGDU, April 19 (Xinhua) -- More than 10,000
students forced to study elsewhere will return to newly-built schools in their
hometown, Wenchuan County, the epicenter of the massive earthquake last May in
southwest China's Sichuan Province, local officials said Sunday.

Ninety-five percent of the school reconstruction in
Wenchuan is expected to be finished before September 1 when the new term begins,
said Hu Zheng'an, Wenchuan Education Bureau head.

Students of four primary schools continued their
education in prefabricated houses in Wenchuan, while most of the nearly 16,000
students across the county moved to other cities or provinces after the
8.0-magnitude earthquake which left more than 87,000 people dead or missing and
millions homeless.

The county made a fresh new program of the school
building with more than 2.2 billion yuan budgeted. As one of the first to start
reconstruction, the Sanjiang Primary School will resume classes for all the 360
pupils on May 12, the first anniversary of the earthquake, Hu said.

Currently, more than 300 workers are working in the
construction site of a primary school around the clock in Yanmen Township.

"Construction of a school covering more than 10,000
square meters normally takes a year, but we plan to finish it within six months
so that students can come back to school earlier," said Huang Guangcan, the
project manager. "We must strengthen supervision to ensure the quality of the
project."