More than 1,000 poor students from ethnic minority groups in southwest China's Yunnan Province will benefit from an aid project that was launched this week in the provincial capital of Kunming.

Starting this year, each of the qualifying students will receive a yearly subsidy of 800 yuan (US$100) to cover living expenses until they finish their nine years of compulsory education.

With a start-up fund of two million yuan (US$250,000) from China Merchants Bank (CMB), the subsidy scheme aims to provide financial aid to poor students in China's western regions, especially those from ethnic minorities.

About 1,000 poor students from primary and junior middle schools in Yunan's Dehong and Diqing prefectures and Kunming will be the first to benefit from the scheme.

The project also aims to aid more poor students in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, CMB said.

One of the students attending the project's launch ceremony, 14-year-old Sun Yuxiang said she was relieved to know she would not have to drop out of school again.

The girl, from the minority De'ang ethnic group in Dehong, had to drop out after primary school because she was too poor to continue studying.

Severe poverty and harsh natural conditions are factors that impact on education levels in many of the regions where most minority groups live; they lag far behind the cities, according to He Tianchun, director of the Yunnan Provincial Bureau of Education.

About 17 counties out of Yunnan's 129 have yet to institute the nine-year compulsory education system, and 12 of these are autonomous counties that are home to many ethnic minorities.

"Schools in these counties and poor students from minority groups need more help," he said, stressing that help from society at large is an essential supplement to government support.

(China Daily June 2, 2006)