The ethnic autonomous areas are key targets for China's plans to basically make nine-year compulsory education universal and basically eliminate illiteracy among the young and middle-aged population, according to a white paper on China's human rights progress in 2004 issued Wednesday by the Information Office of the State Council.

The white paper says special educational funds allocated by the state and key educational projects undertaken by the state are steered to the ethnic minority areas. The "Compulsory Education Project for Impoverished Areas" launched by the state is also geared to the ethnic minority areas in the western part of the country.

According to the white paper, during the period of the Tenth Five-Year Plan (2001-2005), China has set aside 5 billion yuan ( 600 million US dollars) for the continuous implementation of the second phase of the "Compulsory Education Project for Impoverished Areas." More than 80 percent of the funds has been or will be used in western China and other areas where ethnic minorities live in compact communities.

So far, 4 billion yuan (480 million dollars) has already been used to repair or rebuild dilapidated buildings of primary and middle schools in the countryside, of which 57 percent has been used in western China and other areas where ethnic minorities live in compact communities.

Eighty-three percent of the school-age children in Xinjiang, Tibet, Ningxia and Qinghai get free textbooks. In the agricultural and pastoral areas of Tibet, school-age children not only are exempted from school fees but also are provided with free meals and accommodation. Students in 56 counties in Xinjiang get free textbooks and notebooks, and are exempted from paying school fees. In Yunnan Province, students who are exempted from paying for their textbooks, notebooks and school fees totaled 409,000 in 2004, an increase of 92,000 compared with the previous year.

The white paper says that China now has 13 ethnic institutions of higher learning, which enroll mainly students of ethnic- minority origin. In order to train people of ability for Tibet and Xinjiang, these colleges and universities have made special efforts to run preparatory classes for minority peoples, classes for minority peoples, and classes for students from Xinjiang.

In 2004, the Dachang Advanced Experimental Middle School in Hebei Province set up classes for students from the western part of China, which enrolled 108 senior high school students of ethnic minority origin from Guangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Hubei and Ningxia. These students will study there until they complete their senior high school program.

When enrolling new students, institutions of higher learning and secondary specialized schools usually lower the admission criteria for ethnic-minority applicants, and give preferential treatment to students from ethnic groups with extremely small populations, says the white paper.