Increase education funds fairly

Premier Wen Jiabao said in his government work report that in the past five years the State financial expenditure on education accumulated to 7.79 trillion yuan ($1.24 trillion). Education investment was 4 percent of GDP in 2012. Despite the progress, the problem now faced by Chinese education is how to distribute the resources fairly amongst the population, says an article of Guangzhou Daily. Excerpts:

The increase in education expenditure does not necessary mean the most needy areas in China are seeing input in education rise, because, as many reports have exposed, a large sum of education funds are wasted on "image projects", such as building luxury school gates and five-star campus hotels. Other education funds are embezzled or abused.

The new government of China should be vigilant against corruption in the education system to ensure the limited input be used in the right places for the right people.

The distribution of education resources, such as at key schools at various levels, is not even-handed throughout the country given the differing population in some places.

China should reform its education financing system for public schools by streamlining the systems to give the grassroots education authorities more power to make the most suitable and well-targeted assistance plans for local schools, students and teachers. Currently, the power is concentrated in the provincial level education authorities and the efficiency of the financing and its effects are not satisfactory.