At a high-profile forum held on Tuesday at the Great Hall of the People, State Councillor Chen Zhili renewed the government's commitment for more funding for education.

The government should strive to increase its investment on education to 4 per cent of the GDP as soon as possible, and by 2010 that rate should reach 5 per cent, Chen told the meeting.

More government input is surely badly needed. Among all the challenges confronting the country's education system, meagre funding remains a problem that will not go away easily.

The past years, however, have already witnessed increased educational funding. In 2002 it accounted for 3.41 per cent of the GDP, compared with 3.19 per cent in 2001.

The current investment, however, is far from what's needed for an education system with some 318 million students.

The problem is partly reflected in complaints that surface from time to time about schools trying to charge their students for the services they are supposed to get for free. It is also reflected in the poor and outdated teaching facilities in many schools, especially those in rural areas.

The renewed government commitment lays a groundwork for increased optimism for a brighter prospect for education.

Insufficient government investment, however, is not the only hard nut to crack for the country's education sector. The absence of wide channels to mobilize financial resources from society and private investors is another obstacle to the rapid progress of education.

For a long time in the planned economy, education was funded solely by governments. In recent years, although some private schools have been established, there is still much room for progress in mobilizing non-government resources.

Education should not be run as a business. The government is supposed to play the leading role and shoulder the major responsibility in investment, but active involvement of social resources is also a key factor.

Another problem for the education authorities to tackle is that limited education resources are given unbalanced distribution, especially between rural and urban areas.

That problem, fortunately, is now being addressed. Last September the State Council held its first conference on rural education. The special meeting set rural education as a top priority in the country's education development scheme. The central revenue sets aside special funds to support the nine-year compulsory education in rural areas, and special funds for teaching facility improvements in rural schools.

These are encouraging signs. More policy preferences, however, are needed for rural schools to catch up with their urban counterparts.

An imbalance also lies in the fact the majority of the government involvement with education is concentrated on higher education despite college students accounting for only a small percentage of the total number of students.

Education experts point out that more preferential policies should be worked out to encourage non-government funding for higher education. The government, therefore, should divert more attention and resources to the basic nine-year compulsory education, which is the constitutional right of every Chinese citizen.

The significance of the healthy development of the education sector should never be underestimated since it is one of the keys to sustaining the country's world-record economic development.