The Asian Development Bank (ADB) Tuesday said that it would help China increase the level of resources allocated to compulsory education through a technical assistance grant of 500,000 US dollars.

The ADB said that the technical assistance would help put in place effective financing policies, strategies, and mechanisms to ensure universal access to quality compulsory education.

The technical assistance will focus on ensuring equity, timely and stable resource flows to schools, and improved participation of children in education, teaching and learning processes, and learning outcomes.

It will also produce a macro-level study, and a more extensive micro-level investigation focused on counties in a poor Western province, in a moderate-income central province, and in a county in a more well off eastern province.

Getting a good education is one of the best ways to escape poverty and to ensure that people do not wind up on the wrong side of the digital divide, the bank said.

"Basic education plays a critical role by allowing citizens to respond to a changing socioeconomic environment and to participate in, and contribute productively to, the China's economic and social development," says Christopher Spohr, an ADB Social Sector Economist.

"Education is public good and most of the financing comes from the public sector. However, government budgets, particularly at the local level, are under stress. Reforms in the policies that are used to finance education are vital to achieving the goal of universal compulsory education and to achieve the second Millennium Development Goal (MDG)," he added.

The ADB said that although China has made significant progress in making elementary education nearly universally accessible, major challenges remain.

In poor and disadvantaged areas, communities have difficulty mobilizing and managing resources, leading to weak system management and inadequate funding for teacher salaries and learning materials, it noted.

"Poverty disproportionately threatens education prospects for girls, who comprise roughly 80 percent of China's dropouts. Their parents cannot afford the fees and cost of books," Spohr said.

In view of these challenges, the Chinese government has renewed its commitment to achieving the second MDG of providing education for all, reflected in an action plan released in April 2003, and to achieving the "two basics": elimination of literacy and universalization of nine-year compulsory education.

Special emphasis has been given to the Western Region, where, by the end of the 2002-2003 school year, 372 counties had not yet achieved universalization of compulsory education, 60 counties had failed to provide full primary education, and 260 were still battling against illiteracy among the young and middle-aged adults.