From May 6 to 8, Vice Minister of Education Zhong Denghua visited Gansu Province to survey and inspect work on poverty alleviation through education. Zhong visited local kindergartens, primary schools, middle schools, universities and youth activity centers, and hosted a meeting on poverty alleviation in higher education institutions, which was attended by representatives from local universities including Lanzhou University, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou Jiaotong University and Gansu Agricultural University.

Zhong acknowledged the efforts made by Gansu Province to alleviate poverty through education since the convention of the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012. He stressed that priority should be given to achieve the overall goals put forward by President Xi Jinping, i.e. to ensure that “poor populations have access to adequate supply of food and clothing, receive basic medical services and enjoy adequate housing, and that children from poor families are guaranteed access to nine-year compulsory education”. He proposed taking measures to reduce drop-out rates in compulsory education, raise salaries for teachers in poor rural areas, optimize the use of ICT in education, and promote information sharing in the education sector. He stressed the role of education, especially higher education, in alleviating poverty through the use of technology, the mobilization of intellectual resources and support from industry. He also called for greater effort to be made to keep people permanently out of poverty, raise incomes, and ultimately achieve poverty elimination and rural rejuvenation.