Nanchong gives priority to the development of education

The city government of Nanchong, Sichuan province holds a meeting on Sep 10 to celebrate the 35th Teacher's Day. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The city government of Nanchong, Sichuan province highly praised 115 teachers, 34 principals, and 30 schools on Sept 10, at a celebration meeting of the 35th Teacher's Day.

Song Chaohua, party chief of Nanchong, emphasized at the meeting that the city must give priority to the development of education.

He said the city will firmly implement three major projects on education, which are to cultivate a group of "famous teachers," to select a group of "famous principals," and to build a group of "famous schools."

Primary students in Nanchong, Sichuan province play games at school. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Nanchong has been striving to promote the construction of educational infrastructure in recent years. Since 2017, the city has invested 12 billion yuan ($1.69 billion) on educational infrastructure, adding 2.75 million square meters of school buildings and sports fields.

The city started construction on 325 educational projects in the first eight months of this year, with a total investment of 4.01 billion yuan. In September, 14 new kindergartens, primary, and secondary schools were put into use.

Nanchong has also set up a subsidy of 2 million yuan to help poor students in remote rural areas, ensuring that not a single student drop out of due to poverty, according to officials at the city's education and sports bureau.

The newly built campus of a primary school in Nanchong, Sichuan province is put into use. [Photo provided to China Daily]

To date, Nanchong has a total of 1,910 schools, nearly 1.06 million students, and 67,000 faculty members. Its educational resources rank among the top in the province.

During this year's national college entrance examination, a student from Nanchong Senior High School had the highest score in liberal arts in Sichuan province.

City officials said that they will spare no efforts to further develop education to build the city into a sub-center for education in the province, thus providing solid support for the city to become an economic sub-center of the province.