China to waive school fees for 150 mln rural kids

BEIJING, Dec 13 (Reuters) China will waive tuition fees in 2007 for 150 million rural students, in a bid to stem the yawning wealth gap between the affluent coast and the impoverished countryside, state media reported today.

Students would be exempt from tuition and ''incidental fees'' over the course of their nine-year compulsory education starting from the 2007 spring semester, a move that would cost 1.92 billion dollars per year, the China Daily said, citing the Ministry of Education.

''It is part of a major move to relieve the financial burden of farmers and to develop a new countryside,'' the paper said.

Annual per capita disposable income for rural residents was 2,762 yuan after the third quarter of 2006, compared with 8,799 yuan for urban dwellers, China's statistics bureau reported in October.

China waived tuition fees for 50 million rural students in the country's western provinces starting in the spring semester of 2006, the paper said.

The waiver would not, however, apply to children of rural migrant workers who had moved to cities to look for work, the paper said, citing education ministry spokesman Wang Xuming.

The paper did not specify how the fee waiver would be financed, or whether local governments -- already facing a heavy burden funding their share of the expenditure for compulsory schooling -- would make up part of the shortfall.

Rural schools owe their teachers more than 10 billion yuan in back pay, state media have reported, and failure to pay salaries has contributed to a severe shortage of qualified teachers in the countryside.

Reuters LL DS1050