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School houses' safety under check nationwide

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-22 00:02

BEIJING -- The Chinese government will finish an inspection of all the country's primary and secondary schools by the end of October, an official with the Education Ministry said Thursday.

The goal is to find safety flaws in building construction, said Tian Zuyin, deputy director with the ministry's finance department in an interview posted on www.gov.cn, the central government's online portal.

Related readings:  New school opens in Chengdu after quake  Reconstruction of Beichuan Middle School starts on anniversary  Yingxiu school to meet highest anti-quake standards  China launches 3-year school building reinforcement program  Rebuilding the school and hope after the earthquake

When the inspection of all the 388,000 schools is complete, the ministry will announce which ones need to be reconstructed or reinforced.

The three-year nationwide school inspection began on May 8 as a way to improve school building's capabilities to survive disasters such as earthquakes, landslides, floods and typhoons.

Supervision authorities at different levels are conducting scheduled or unscheduled inspections at schools, said Zhou Jian, deputy director with the ministry's supervision office.

According to the ministry's plan, local government heads will be responsible for accidents in which dilapidated or unsafe school buildings in their administrative areas cause injury or death.

The central government will appropriate at least 24 billion yuan (US$3.5 billion) in upcoming three years to support reinforcement of buildings in earthquake prone areas such as central and western China.

However, it is estimated that at least 200 billion yuan (US$29.4 billion) is needed for reinforcement of rural school buildings in those regions.

The rest of the money will be raised by governments at the provincial level, according to the ministry.

The quality of schools in southwest China's Sichuan Province has been a major source of discontent and complaint for local parents whose children died in the devastating 8.0-magnitude quake on May 12 last year.