Hu Kaihong:

Good morning and welcome to the policy briefing.

The executive meeting of the State Council discussed simplifying and optimizing public service procedures and guaranteeing financial support for compulsory education on Nov 18.

Today we have with us Mr. Wu Zhilun, deputy director of the office of the State Council’s unit of transforming the government’s functions, who will tell us about the State Council’s statement on simplifying the procedures.

Also with us are Mr. Yu Weiping, vice-minister of finance and Mr. Chen Shun, assistant minister of education, who will introduce the State Council’s statement on guaranteeing financial support for compulsory education.

Wu Zhilun:

Good morning.

The CPC Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to simplifying public service procedures for people at the grassroots. Premier Li Keqiang said that, in the next stage, the reform to streamline administrative approval procedures should focus on cutting useless and fussy procedures for the public and sharing information among departments.

The State Council’s executive meeting passed a statement in this regard on Nov 18.

The statement sums up good practices by some local authorities and government departments, and aims to introduce some feasible and effective measures to better encourage entrepreneurship and mass innovation, as well as to bring out the potential of the market and the society.

The statement has four requirements in general. First is that procedures concerning public services should be convenient. Second is that the procedures should be legal. Third is that government departments should disclose relevant information to the public. Fourth is that different government departments should be able to share their data.

Wu Zhilun:

It goes on to bring up six tasks. One, government departments should sort out all the procedures the public need to go through for accessing public services and disclose these procedures to the public.

Two, they should cut out all pointless requirements for certificates and proofs and fussy procedures.

Three, they should invest efforts in simplifying such procedures.

Four, they should speed up the pace of sharing information among different departments.

Five, they should ensure procedures can be completed online.

Six, they should improve their ability to offer services and their attitude.

The statement then brings up three measures to guarantee the six tasks are accomplished.

First, government departments should come up with solutions by the end of the year to simplify complicated procedures.

Second, they should respond actively to the public’s concern and set up platforms to interact with the public and get to know what they need.

Third, they should strengthen daily supervision to make sure the tasks are implemented.

Now I would like to take your questions. Thank you.

Hu Kaihong:

Thank you, Mr. Wu. I believe we are all looking forward to these measures. Mr. Yu, please.

Yu Weiping:

Friends from the media, welcome to today’s policy briefing. Thank you for your support for the fiscal work. The State Council’s 113th executive meeting on Nov 18 looked at the issue of compulsory education in urban and rural areas and decided to improve fiscal support for the issue. Here is a brief introduction to the State Council’s decision.

The CPC Central Committee and the central government have long paid a great deal of attention to education, especially the development of compulsory education, which is all-covering and a forerunner of educational work in other fields. Local governments at all levels have also accordingly increased input into compulsory education. Since 2006, fiscal supporting mechanisms have been set up for rural and urban children to ensure support from public finances, and such public financial investment will increase on a yearly basis. Over the past decade, the general budget for compulsory education has increased from 243.2 billion yuan ($38.11 billion) in 2005 to nearly 1.2 trillion yuan in 2014, an average annual increase of 19.4 percent. The nine-year compulsory education system has covered almost all rural and urban children and the quality of education, especially in counties and townships, has improved. However, urbanization and the ongoing reform of China’s hukou system has increased the mobility of students. Support through public finances for compulsory education also varies in different places. Educational resources are not equally allocated in different areas. All this has raised new challenges to the existing fiscal support mechanism.

In order to face up these challenges, we have put forth the following suggestions.

In general, the improvement of fiscal support for compulsory education can be summed up in the “three integrations and two cements”.

The first integration is an integrated exemption policy. The former exemption policy — for tuition fees, incidentals and textbook fees — applied only to rural resident students and urban students from impoverished families. And other urban students could not be exempted from textbook fees. The new integration exception policy will apply to all students for compulsory education, including those from private schools.

The second integration is a benchmark on the fiscal revenue for each student. Previously, the central government had a rural benchmark, while the urban standard would be set up by local governments. The new policy asks for a unified benchmark for both rural and urban students and it will make clear the responsibility on the central government to subsidize urban compulsory education, including those in private schools. But I have to point out that the benchmark is only a bottom line of fiscal input and each local government can also work out higher inputs.

The third integration is a system of shared fiscal responsibility for rural and urban students by central and local governments. After the policy adjustment, the central and local governments will together cover the cost. In particular, the cost of free textbooks for qualified students will be covered by the central government revenues, while the living subsidies will be equally shared between the local and the central governments. The central government will take up 80 percent of the public expense for students in western China, 60 percent in the central area and half in the east.

As for “Two Reinforcements”, the first one is to reinforce the safety of rural school buildings. The central revenues will support the refurbishment, reinforcement and expansion of rural public schools for compulsory education. The reinforcement in urban areas will be taken up by local governments. The second reinforcement is to implement the wage policies for teachers of compulsory education. The central government will continue to subsidize teachers in central and western China as well as those from impoverished areas in the east.

Along with the policy adjustment, the government will carry out transformation plans for schools where the quality of compulsory education is weaker. Schools in the rural areas, old revolutionary base areas, regions inhabited by ethnic groups, border and impoverished areas will be prioritized to take on the projects.

The policies mentioned above will be carried out in two steps. By 2016, the integrated benchmark will be set up, and by 2017 the integrated exemption policy will be carried out. The central government will continue to work out policy adjustments to solve emerging problems in line with the government’s fiscal power.

Now I’d like to take your questions.

Hu Kaihong:

Thank you, Mr. Yu. Now questions please.

China News Service:

Mr. Wu, just now you have mentioned solutions to streamline administrative procedures by the end of this year, could you please give us an introduction about what specific measures will be taken to solve the problem? Thank you.

Wu Zhilun:

First, every department should make known the administrative items;

Second, related departments shouldn’t ask for materials that are not required by law;

Third, information should be shared within a department. Every department should try their best to look up information already submitted, and not ask for the same information again;

Fourth, networks should be set up among departments to strengthen communications.

We may consider a system to ask the applicants to make promises instead of demanding endless proof materials. We can also make regulations stricter while streamlining the administrative process.

Guangming Daily:

Mr. Yu has given an introduction to the safeguard mechanism for the unified compulsory urban and rural education funds. I would like to ask Mr. Chen, which group of students will benefit most? Will migrant children, for example, children coming from central and western China to study in eastern China, be provided with more funds?

Chen Shun:

Thank you for your question. This is the question that people paid most attention to this reform. The reform of the compulsory education fund guarantee mechanism is an important measure to have children enjoy equal rights to compulsory education, no matter whether they are in rural or urban areas, native or migrant, studying in public schools or private schools.

Five groups of children will benefit most from this mechanism reform. They are migrant students, boarding students, students in private schools, students in small schools and students with special needs. About 13 million migrant students will directly benefit from the reform. More than 30 million boarding students, 12 million students in private schools and 5 million students in small schools will also get benefits.

On the whole, the reform mechanism has been improved to help students undergoing compulsory education share the benefits of the reform.

People’s Daily:

I want to ask Mr. Yu a question. In the policy of improving the fund guarantee for compulsory education in both urban and rural areas, it mentions that the policy of exempting tuitions and incidentals, providing free textbooks and distributing subsidies to cash-strapped boarding students will be expanded to compulsory education in urban areas. Why was that policy made? In addition, the basic funds for public use will be unified. What will be the standard after unification? Moreover, how wide was the gap between the basic funds for urban and rural areas in the past? Thanks.

Yu Weiping:

The policy of improving the fund guarantee for compulsory education in both urban and rural areas is an important institutional innovation to actively adapt to a new type of urbanization and reform of the household registration system. It is significant for both promoting equality of basic public services and advancing a balanced development of urban and rural compulsory education at a higher level.

First, it will help promote education equality and advance a balanced development of compulsory education. The original guarantee mechanism was designed for rural and urban areas separately. According to the original mechanism, students from rural areas were exempt from tuitions and incidentals and provided with free textbooks, and rural boarding students from poor families could receive subsidies to cover their living expenses. However, for students in urban areas, only those from cash-strapped families got free textbooks. After some students from rural areas became urban residents, they could no longer enjoy the same benefits. Unification of the fund guarantee mechanism pretty much solves that problem. Students receiving compulsory education, including those studying at private schools, in both urban and rural areas will all be able to enjoy the benefit of the policy.

Second, by promoting the portability of education funds, we can adapt to a new type of urbanization and reform of the household registration system. In recent years, a large number of rural students flooded into urban areas, which has brought about great pressures on compulsory education in urban areas. Particularly, in some urban schools containing a large number of students from families of migrant workers, their basic public funds were even lower than those of some rural schools. Since 2006, the central government has unified the basic per-student public funds in both urban and rural areas, i.e., 600 yuan for primary schools and 800 yuan for middle schools in middle and western China, and 650 yuan for primary schools and 850 yuan for middle schools in eastern China. In doing so, it helped realize the portability of education funds. To put it another way, the money goes along with the students. In other words, students can enjoy the benefit of the policy in both urban and rural areas, and no matter where the students receive their compulsory education, they will receive subsidies no less than the stipulated amount.

Third, it will help build a long-term mechanism for steadily increasing the funds for compulsory education. The new measure marks our country’s first unified fund guarantee mechanism for compulsory education in both urban and rural areas. Through the design of institutions and mechanisms, the measure determines the policy and the standard of compulsory education funds in urban and rural areas, as well as the ratio of expenditures shared by the central and local governments. It sets up a unified framework of institutions and mechanisms for compulsory education funds, and it will effectively guarantee the steady and sustainable growth of compulsory education funds and promote compulsory education to develop in a balanced and healthy way.

China Central Television:

Mr. Wu, as for accelerating information sharing among government departments, what measures does the government plan to take?

Wu Zhilun:

We have done research on information sharing. A traditional idea is to establish a unified database, but I think it would be difficult. Different government departments have different requirements and expectations for the database. Currently, we are thinking we can take two steps within one or two years.

Step one, promote sharing within a system. For example, some enterprises complain that, when establishing new enterprises, they need to go to the State Administration for Industry & Commerce for name approval, and after that, they have to apply for name approval again when they come to the Beijing industry and commerce authority. So we are considering the database of the industry and commerce system can be unified for sharing first. For another example, entry and exit authorities of the public security system need to check personal information of people going abroad. However, some of the information can be found in the ID card system, which can be obtained by all local police stations. If the database within the public security system can be shared, at least that problem would be solved, and there would be no need to ask people to show various certifications.

Step two, can we share our most commonly used information, such as personal identity information, identity information of enterprises, public institutions and social organizations, with government service offices? Because many procedures are carried out in government service offices. As for the sharing of other information, we probably need to take slower steps. For now, at least we plan to push the two steps forward.

Phoenix Satellite Television:

My first question goes to Mr. Wu. About the project concerning public service improvement you just mentioned, is there any timetable to implement the project? The second question is for Mr. Chen. The education fund guarantee put forward by the State Council executive meeting this week mentioned little about teachers’ salaries, but it has become a serious social problem that students tend to go to schools in big cities because there are better teaching staffs there. So will the new mechanism make any difference in solving this problem?

Wu Zhilun:

There is no timetable, but a deadline is required. As to the social problems that have drawn criticism, we will first issue a notice asking related departments to come up with measures to tackle these problems and implement them before the end of the year. Once outstanding problems arise, we will urge relevant departments to produce related measures in three months to deal with them and ensure the effective implementation of such measures within half a year. However, the reality is that exceptions might occur in some cases. For example, my personal file needs to be transferred from one personnel exchange center to another, but the new place refused to receive it, because they could not charge for keeping my file. The policy is that the financial department will pay for the charges later, but some places didn’t make the settlement. We will address such problems as long as we find out about them.

Hu Kaihong:

So it’s mainly problem-based.

Wu Zhilun:

Right.

Chen Shun:

Thank you for your concern for the teachers. There are policies concerning teachers’ salaries in place, and the new education mechanism of fund guarantee aims to better implement it. Reasonable allocation of the teaching stuff is an important effort in promoting balanced development of compulsory education, and we are taking measures to make it happen. First is to enhance the exchanges between teachers in different places, so as to make sure there is excellent teaching staff in schools in rural and remote areas. Second is to increase teachers’ payment, especially for those rural teachers, which has been detailed in a plan by the State Council, and we are making them into a reality. Thank you.

China Daily:

There is public concern about the balanced development of compulsory education. So here is a question for Mr. Yu. What measures would the Ministry of Finance take to provide continuing support for the balanced development of compulsory education? Thank you.

Yu Weiping:

Thanks for your question. I have mentioned the balanced development of compulsory education. How to advance it to a higher level? There are three points: mechanisms, basic education infrastructure, and sustainability.

First, steady improvement of mechanisms to guarantee financial support for compulsory education in urban and rural areas.

On the one hand, such mechanism has been developed since 2006 as the policies of “free tuitions, free textbooks, and subsidies” were implemented in rural areas.

Major developments have been made in long-term mechanism regarding refurbishment and maintenance of rural schools.

Furthermore, mechanisms that guarantee the salaries of rural teachers have also been improved.

So far, about 110 million rural students are enjoying the policies of free textbooks and tuition and about 12.4 million boarding students from poor families receive subsidies.

On the other hand, starting in the fall of 2008, tuition for urban compulsory education has been exempted. Education of students from migrant workers’ families has been guaranteed as the central government provides financial subsidies on this issue.

But the subsidies at that time differ from the current “portable subsidies”. The former subsidies are primarily from the central government’s financial support to local governments, which then transfer the subsidies to local schools.

Now, we have established a student management system that means subsidies stay with the student from primary school to college as each student has an exclusive ID number in the system at the beginning of their education.

From 2006 to 2014, the central government has spent 824 billion yuan ($129 billion) on compulsory education, with annual increases of 33 percent.

Second, establishment of basic education infrastructure. Since 2011, plans to restructure rural schools have been implemented to improve conditions in rural areas. In 2015, 33 billion yuan was set aside to support mid-western regions as well as the poor eastern regions.

Supporting plans for rural teachers have also been implemented to improve the quality of rural education.

We have also set out nutrition improvement plans. Since the fall of 2011, the central government has given financial support to poverty-stricken regions to improve the nutrition conditions of rural students. From 2014, the standard of financial support has been readjusted as the nutrition subsidy rose from three yuan to four yuan per student each day.

The plan has benefited 32 million rural students.

Third, sustainability is also an important issue. The central government will continue to strengthen financial support for local governments to build a sustainable system regarding the balanced development of compulsory education.

We should adapt to a new-type urbanization and household registration reform by establishing a unified fiscal supporting mechanism regarding urban and rural compulsory education while focusing on rural compulsory education.

Wu Zhilun:

I want to add a word. The whole education administration system should share the student management system. Otherwise, for example, if I come to attend school in Beijing, I have to travel back and forth to Shanxi to get different certificates. We should not ask those students’ parents to travel for those certificates.

Yu Weiping:

We think this is a very important issue, I cannot agree more with Mr. Wu. The basic information system is exceedingly important, especially against the backdrop of the current mobility between cities and rural areas. We all support the Ministry of Education to set up such a system. And I also took a closer look at this system. With one click, one can clearly see all the information about a student: where does he come from and where does he go?

Wu Zhilun:

It would be excellent if the information can be shared among education institutions.

Chen Shun:

The nation’s primary school and middle school student management system set up by the Education Ministry meets the requirement raised by Mr. Wu. Students who transfer schools do not have to produce any certificate because the transferring procedure can be done in the management system.

Wu Zhilun:

Thank you on behalf of the students’ parents.

China National Radio

The fifth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee also proposed making high school education more widespread. Does it mean we are going to extend compulsory education to 12 years? Or will the state offer more financial support for high school education?

Chen Shun:

Currently, the whole society is very concerned about this question. Whether high school education is compulsory? And the answer is clearly no. Compulsory education means all children within the age range have to go to school. Making high school education widespread means most eligible students will receive a high school education. But it is not compulsory. For example, some young people will choose to work instead of going to high school. This is not illegal. At the current stage of our development, making high school education more widespread is a suitable target. Thank you.

Hu Kaihong:

That’s all for today’s policy briefing. Thank you all.