Chinese state councilor lauds E-9's efforts to promote education

The world's nine most populous developing countries have achieved notable achievements in their drive to promote education, Chinese State Councilor Chen Zhili said Tuesday.

Chen made the remarks while delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of The Sixth E-9 Ministerial Meeting on Education for All held in the city of Monterrey, 700 km north of Mexico City.

Saying that China made unswerving efforts to fulfill its promise of education for all, Chen noted that the population enjoying the nine-year compulsory education has risen from 86 percent to 95 percent over the past five years.

She stressed that the Chinese government attaches great importance to ensure chance of schooling for children from poverty-stricken families, especially for girls and handicapped children.

In the coming two years, China will completely waive tuition in the rural areas and establish proper mechanisms to ensure funding for the nine-year compulsory education, Chen said.

China's education for all still faces a number of challenges, Chen said, the first of them is an educational gap between prosperous urban areas and poor rural regions.

Chen called for E-9 nations' cooperation to realize common development of the education for all.

E-9, an educational organization of the world's most populous nations, has 50 percent of the world's school-age population, 45 percent of the world's 100 million children who have never been educated, and around 70 percent of the world's 771 million illiterate adults.

The two-day E-9 meeting began on Monday with the aim to promote educational cooperation among the nine nations: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.

Koichiro Matsuura, director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and Mexico's president Vicente Fox Quesada opened the meeting.

Source: Xinhua