Jiangsu strives for equal standards of education in rural and urban areas by 2020, according to the province’s new guideline.

The guidelines set targets for increasing the standard of education in all schools in the province by 2020. To do this a regulatory system will be introduced which will evaluate all schools according to those standards, said Ge Daokai, secretary of the Department of Education.

Weaker schools will be given priority and targeted for improvement, allowing facilities and teaching quality to catch up quicker.

Making sure that good teachers are available to work in schools in both urban and rural areas is stressed in the guidelines. Better-performing teachers will be given incentives to teach at rural schools to help improve teaching quality. The incentives include a rotation system, rural teacher programs, and increasing rural salaries.

“The major gap between urban and rural schools lies not in hardware but in teachers,” said Zhuang Wanrong, headmaster of a primary school in Xiangshui prefecture.   

Reducing classroom sizes is another goal set out in the guidelines, where again, rural schools perform poorly compared to their urban counterparts. The guidelines state that by 2018, class sizes above 66 students will be banned, followed by classes with over 56 students in 2020.

The guidelines further require that homework burdens be reduced and better regulation of education and training organizations.