The coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong province [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The education sector in Qingdao, Shandong province has achieved higher quality development over the past five years, local officials said at a news conference on Jan 5.

From 2016 to 2019, the city's total investment in education reached 126.6 billion yuan ($19.61 billion), an increase of 22.1 percent over the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-15).

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), the city has been making continuous efforts to increase the supply of quality education resources.

For instance, the city built, renovated and expanded 338 kindergartens and 210 primary and secondary schools. It has also completed construction of supporting kindergartens in 209 residential areas.

The city's coverage of preschool education rose from 72 percent in 2015 to 90 percent in 2020, 14 percentage points higher than the national average.

Qingdao has unveiled four higher vocational colleges over the past five years, grown its number of colleges and universities to 29, and achieved a ratio of 5,022 college students per 100,000 people, an increase of 8.7 percent over 2015.

Qingdao has also set up three experimental school groups among 34 municipal-level experimental schools and 65 high-quality education groups, including the Qingdao No 2 Middle School, Qingdao No 58 Middle School and Qingdao Experimental Junior High School.

The city has taken a slew of measures to bridge the gap between the quality of education in urban and rural areas and promote fairness in education by enhancing the operational aspects of schools.