On the morning of December 18th, Guangzhou Municipality held a meeting at Hotel Canton to self-assess its achievements in education. Municipal Government officials, including Zhang Guangning, Zhou Qingqiang, Xu Zhibiao, Lin Shengzhu and Xiang Dongsheng, attended the meeting. Officials from provincial government thought highly of the progress that Guangzhou had achieved in developing education, which included (1): all the 12 districts and county-level cities, 34 of the 36 towns and all the major 17 towns have been recognized by the provincial government as strong districts or towns in education; (2): Guangzhou boasts 22% of all the leading high schools in Guangdong Province; and (3): results of college entrance examinations have remained the best in Guangdong in the past 18 years. 

After delivering a welcoming speech at the meeting, Zhang Guangning, Mayor and Vice Secretary of the Guangzhou Party Committee, said that while developing economy vigorously, Guangzhou Party Committee and Guangzhou Municipal Government have been attaching great importance to development of education, sticking to and implementing consistently strategies of developing Guangzhou through science and technology and attracting more talents. Lots of investment has been poured into education to improve facilities and optimize education resources. Besides, the government has intensified efforts to reform education and balance development between urban areas, rural areas and all institutions, promoting compulsory education across the city. Zhang expressed that Guangzhou Municipal Government would actively cooperate with officials from Provincial Government to carry out their appraisal work on Guangzhou¡¯s education. He hoped that Guangzhou would win consistent support from Provincial Government for its education development. Finally, Zhang added that Guangzhou would take the chance of the appraisal work to accelerate Guangzhou¡¯s education for a coordinative and sound development, making more contributions to education in Guangdong Province.

Vice Mayor Xu Zhibiao made a self-assessment report on behalf of Guangzhou Municipality. He said that to provide citizens with satisfying education and to build Guangzhou into a strong city in education were important projects of creating harmonious Guangzhou. It shows that the government exercises power for the interests of the public. The Municipal Government will encourage more investment in education to create Guangzhou¡¯s brand education and promote it in Guangdong Province, in China or even worldwide. Besides, the government will strength fair exercise in education, pay special attention to ethic education, promote quality-oriented education, improve education facilities and teachers¡¯ income. He added that Guangzhou tried its best to develop a modernized education system suitable to be applied in metropolises by 2010 with comprehensive strength of education equal to that of cities in intermediately developed countries. 

(Translated by Guangzhou Association of Foreign Affairs Translators)

Source : english.gz.gov.cn