National People's Congress (NPC) deputy, Director of Guangdong Education department, Zheng Detao, said on March 13 that Guangdong is preparing to implement a pilot program that would be free for the 9 year compulsory education.

This comes in reaction to Premier Wen Jiabao's proposal from his government work report that by 2007, the students in poor rural area should receive free compulsory education.

Zheng said, in fact Guangdong has been enforcing this policy since 2001. He said, to carry out free compulsory education for all children, Guangdong has introduced a step-by-step approach providing the service to the poorest communities first, and later to the more well to do regions of the province.

He also said as a result of the program, high school enrollment will increase by more than 10% this year. Guangdong's net university enrollment rate is 20% of high school graduates, compared to the national average of 19%.

In Guangdong, 9 out of 1,000 people are university students, ranking the province 17th in the country in terms of university attendance percentages.

Zheng added that the higher education development plan in Guangdong hopes to achieve a gross university enrollment rate of 25% by 2007, and 28% by 2010.

Editor: Catherine