School equality and quality

Despite this country's education reforms of the past two years, ensuring there are equality and quality in education remains a tough task.

According to estimates, as much as 2.2 trillion yuan ($158 billion) will be spent on education in China this year, an amount equal to 4 percent of the country's GDP.

That percentage was set as a goal for education spending in the early 1990s, according to Yuan Guiren, minister of education, who spoke to reporters on Thursday about his ministry's efforts in the past two years to put China's national guidelines on education reform into effect.