A young female teacher teaches students in class in a rural village. [Photo/IC]

Education emerged as a significant livelihood issue during the meetings of provincial people's congresses and political consultative conferences before the ongoing annual sessions of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee, the country's top advisory body. At the fourth meeting of the 12th Shaanxi people's congress, provincial governor Lou Qinjian said Shaanxi would introduce 13 years of free education during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period. This means children in Shaanxi will receive free education for 13 years-one-year preschool education, nine-year compulsory education and three-year senior high school education.

Some people suppose Shaanxi is introducing the 13-year free education program to alleviate poverty and promote the central and western regions' development. However, it is not necessary to extend the free-education program to the developed eastern region because the high school education rate is already high there. A majority of families in the eastern region can afford to pay for their children's high school education.

Some other people want preferential implementation of free education. For instance, they want the authorities to encourage rural students to choose vocational schools by making such courses free. This is important because, they say, if high school education is also free, secondary vocational education will have few takers.

But this contention is debatable. China has implemented 12 to 15 years of free education in some counties, most of them being in the underdeveloped regions. And there has been nothing to suggest free education is meaningless in the developed regions.

Although the central government hasn't included 12 to 15 years of free education in the national education program, local authorities should consider extending it according to their actual situations, in order to improve people's basic education and ease their financial burden.