>> Focus: poor students in new term

More than a third of the households in China's poor western region can't afford tuition fees for their children's junior high school education, according to a report on the region's economic and social development released in Beijing on Wednesday (Sep 27).

The report was written by the National Research Center for Science and Technology for Development under China's Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and a Norwegian consulting agency, the Institute of Applied Social Science of Norway (FAFO).

Among the 44,000 households and 167,000 people surveyed in the region, 34 percent of the households said junior high school tuition fees were beyond their reach, the report said.

People in the region's rural areas are facing the most difficulty as 39 percent of rural households said they cannot afford the fees, while 19 percent of their urban counterparts said the fees were too much for them to handle.

The survey also shows that households in the region that manage to send a child to university will spend just under three quarters of their annual income on tuition fees.

"Paying tuition fees" is one of the major reasons western households go into debt, the report said.

The report also said that the illiteracy rate in the region remains high, with 28 percent of the adult respondents saying they cannot read a letter. The illiteracy rate is significantly lower in younger age groups.

An earlier survey showed that China's college tuition fees of 5,000 yuan (about 625 U.S. dollars) per year on average are well beyond the reach of most rural residents in the country, who earn on average about 3,200 yuan a year.

Editor: Wing