BEIJING, Feb. 21 -- Ministry of Education on Friday said 43.8 billion yuan (7.2 billion U.S. dollars) embezzled or borrowed from education budgets after 2011 has been reclaimed for its original purpose.

In the past year, the educational supervisory committee of the State Council inspected 2,139 schools in 293 cities and counties, and sent out 142,000 questionnaires with nearly 99 percent returned.

To cultivate excellent teachers, more than 29.4 billion yuan was, invested in training programs in 2012 and 2013, recruiting 510,000 teachers and training 18.7 million.

Another 28.7 billion yuan went on schooling the children of migrant workers, and almost 35 billion yuan was used to help 44.79 million poor students.

More inspections are due in late February in 11 provincial-level regions including rural primary and middle schools.