China's Education Minister Zhou Ji said at a press conference that China would spend RMB50 billion each year to fund 20 million students from poverty-stricken families.
Zhou's remarks are a conclusion to China's new study aid system that consists of a national scholarship, national incentive scholarship, national stipend, national study aid loan and work-study program.
Under the new system, the national scholarship will be used to award excellent students at institutions of higher learning or advanced occupational schools. 50,000 students will be awarded each year and each of them will receive RMB8000. The money will be provided by the central finance department.
The National Incentive Scholarship will be set up by the local government and the central government to fund students who are from poor families but achieve excellent academic records, and each of them will receive RMB5000 per year. About 510,000 of the students, accounting for 3% of the total, will benefit from this policy.
The National Stipend is used to support full-time college and university students from poor families. Each year, 3.4 million students, accounting for 20% of the total will receive this stipend averaged RMB2000 per person per year.
The National Study Aid Loan program will be further consummated and implemented to make sure that all students from poor families can finish their study, but these students must go to work at a remote area for certain years after their graduation from college.
From this year on, the government will also carry out a pilot program of offering free tuition and free accommodation for students of normal universities. Six normal universities across the country, including Beijing Normal University, East China Normal University, Northeast Normal University, Huazhong Normal University, Shaanxi Normal University and Southwest Normal University will be included in this program.
Universities are further asked to allocate 4-6% of their income and spend it on loans, subsidies or work and study programs.
