Billions of yuan are to be ploughed into rural education over the next few years, in a bid to balance the educational development between rural and urban areas.

Speaking at a working conference on educational development in rural areas yesterday, Guangzhou Mayor Zhang Guangning announced that a special fund worth of 4.8 billion yuan (US$580 million) has been earmarked to enhance educational development in the city's rural areas.

This year alone, the municipal government will invest some 335 million yuan (US$40.5 million) in its rural areas, up 60 per cent on last year.

Internet-related teaching and learning networks will be a key demand on the funds, as in rural areas the use of computers is still rare, said Zhang.

Last year, the city launched an "e-era" project to use the Web to aid youngsters' study in its urban areas.

Yesterday the mayor pledged to extend the project to the city's rural areas this year, to provide a virtual platform on which rural and urban children can share education resources.

The Guangdong provincial capital has paid more attention to the income gap between rural and urban people over the last few years.

"However, we have realized that disparities between the two not only lie in the income field, but also in education," said Zhang.

A number of problems, such as a shortage of educational funds, insufficient access to Internet-related facilities and qualified teachers are hindering educational development in the countryside, he said.

Zhong Runsheng, a primary school teacher in the city's Huadu District, said classes in his school tend to be big because of a shortage of classrooms.

In other rural districts, for example, there are over 60 children to a class in some schools, a survey conducted by the Guangzhou Education Bureau showed.

"It is too crowded to breathe, let alone to study," said Zhong.

The survey also found that about 3 per cent of teachers in rural schools have not obtained the teaching qualification certificate.

And some courses, such as English and IT-related ones, cannot even be started because there are no qualified teachers or the necessary teaching materials in some rural schools, it revealed.

In addition, a considerable number of youngsters were forced to drop out of middle school after failing to make the academic grade, often due to the poor study and teaching environment and poverty, the survey reported.

Editor: Wing