SHENZHEN is going to spend 60 billion yuan (US$8.71 billion) to build 18 universities, according to Tang Shukui, director of the Shenzhen Municipal Finance Commission, at a panel discussion during the third session of the sixth Shenzhen Municipal Congress (MPC) on Sunday.

    A string of questions regarding education in Shenzhen were posed by a group of Shenzhen MPC deputies at Sunday’s discussion that was specially organized to probe educational issues. The deputies asked officials from five relevant departments questions regarding school slots, expansion projects, equal allocation of educational resources and so on.

    In response to the deputies’ question concerning the budget for education development in Shenzhen, Tang said that a large share of the budget would be used to build universities in the near future as the city is actively introducing more top university sources.

    One of the deputies, Xiao Youmei, also a member of the MPC’s budget committee, said that the official figures showed that the last two years’ budget for education development in Shenzhen had not been fully spent. Nearly half of the budget had been saved by the end of the years.

    “Though Shenzhen does not have a lot of universities at the moment, there will be a large investment into building more universities in the coming years,” said Tang.

    The director also said that some of the money had not been used because some educational projects were to be paid the year after they were signed.

    A deputy named Li Yongxia, who is expecting her second child, raised her concern about the increasingly intense competition for school slots, since more women in Shenzhen are planning to have a second child, which will directly increase the demand for slots at schools.

    Zhang Jihong, head of the municipal education bureau, responded to Li saying that 47,000 more slots would be added to public schools in order to cater to more school-age children. To achieve that, the city plans to build or expand 34 primary and secondary schools this year.

    In a bid to equalize educational resources, a deputy director from the municipal development and reform commission, Qiu Jianming, said that the emphasis of educational infrastructure will mainly be put on regions outside of the former Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ).

    Thus, 75 percent of the newly added school slots will be allocated to these areas while new slots at high schools are going to be in districts outside of the former SEZ, namely districts like Longgang, Bao’an, Longhua and so on.

    Other educational issues, including a higher allowance for pre-school educational institutions, were also discussed at Sunday’s panel discussion.

    (Zhang Qian)