UN rapporteur should be objective on Chinese educational policy

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, September 23, 2003

UN rapporteur should be objective on Chinese educational policy

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Kong Quan, Foreign Ministry spokesman expressed hope Tuesday that Katarina Tomasevski, special rapporteur on the right to education of the UN Commission on Human Rights, will use correct statistics and adopt an objective and impartial attitude in giving an account of the reform and development of education in China.

In response to a question at a press conference, spokesman Kong Quan said senior officials of the Chinese Ministry of Education and experts had made detailed explanations about China's educational expenditures to the rapporteur on many occasions during their discussions in China.

The Chinese officials and experts had made it clear that educational expenditures accounted for 3.41 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of China, he said.

However, Kong said, when Tomasevski released materials to the media, she did not adopt the correct statistics that the Chinese side provided to her. Instead, she used many figures that were not in conformity with the facts, alleging that China's fiscal expenditure on education accounted for only two percent of the GDP, Kong said.

Kong said that over the past more than two decades, China had made unremitting efforts to realize the right to education. He said the Chinese government had adopted the strategy of "rejuvenating the country with science and technology and education," further increasing input in education and achieving marked results in this respect.

However, he said, as a developing country, China had yet to make further efforts to realize the right to education and was ready to draw on the experience of the international community.

The Chinese side would carefully study the opinions and suggestions that the rapporteur had put forward, Kong said.

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