North China's Shanxi province has recently allocated 5.2 billion yuan ($715.45 million) in subsidies for rural and urban compulsory education. The funds will be used to support policies such as tuition and miscellaneous fee exemptions, living allowances for students from low-income families, nutritional meal subsidies, and school building renovations.

This year, Shanxi has increased its living allowance standards for students from low-income families in compulsory education. Approximately 280,000 students across the province are expected to receive the living allowances. In the spring semester of 2024, the annual allowance for elementary school students increased from 1,000 yuan to 1,250 yuan, and that for middle school students increased from 1,250 yuan to 1,500 yuan.

The provincial government also requires all cities and counties to allocate public funds for schools and nutritional meal subsidies in a timely and sufficient manner, strictly prohibiting delaying, withholding, falsely reporting, or misappropriating the funds. 

To increase support for school building renovations in rural areas, the provincial government has allocated funds to bolster the long-term guarantee mechanism for school building safety based on the reported safe school building area in each region. Furthermore, the salary subsidy standard for special-post teachers has been raised. Starting Jan 1, 2024, it has increased from 35,200 yuan to 38,800 yuan.

Moving forward, the provincial government will include the subsidies for rural and urban compulsory education in direct funding, implement dynamic monitoring, and continuously increase investment to support and guide the province in accelerating the development of high-quality and balanced compulsory education and integrated urban-rural development.