Shangsi county to waive tuition and fees for senior high students

Shangsi county in Fangchenggang, Guangxi, plans to take the lead in implementing a tuition and fee waiver policy among regular senior high schools from the spring semester of next year.

It is predicted that the net increase number of senior high students will be about 250 every year and the county will have 3,000 students studying at regular senior high schools three years from now. The additional expenditure will be 8.78 million yuan ($1.37 million) annually.

A local education department official said that the tuition waiver can not only facilitate popularization of high school education, but also help Shangsi people escape poverty and be better off.

Several regions in Guangxi have taken this measure before. In 2010, Guangxi waived tuition and fees for students from reservoir areas and in 28 key counties included in the national plan for poverty alleviation through development. Pingxiang, a border city near Vietnam, waived all tuition for high school students in the fall semester of 2010. Other counties such as Ziyuan and Yangshuo in Guilin also implemented a similar policy.

Edited by Peter Nordlinger