Budget set to educate Shanghai City

In a bid to ensure that the "faulty mechanical work which lead to the Jing'an fire is not repeated," blue-collar workers will be among the city's students to benefit from the 5 billion yuan ($793 million) to be spent on vocational training this year, Shanghai authorities said Wednesday, releasing the year's plans for  the city's 70 billion yuan-education budget.

A joint-program between Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and corporate enterprises, it plans to better train workers, in light of the deadly errors made by welders, who had been carrying out poor renovation work at a 28-storey high-rise that went ablaze on November 15, which claimed the lives of 58 people in 2010, said Xue Mingyang, Party secretary and chair of the education commission.

"In recent years, employers have often blamed temps or migrant workers for workplace accidents, including the 2010 Jing'an fire," he told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. "Therefore, for the first time, we're supporting vital vocational training for blue-collar workers across various industries."

No further details of the program set to account for roughly 7 percent of this year's education budget - which exceeded last year's by roughly 9 billion yuan - were provided Wednesday.

But, authorities highlighted other key areas for spending, including money to attract foreign students to the city, and funds to create more schools for local residents.

An undisclosed portion of the funds will be set aside for scholarships to draw a larger number of foreign students as the city continues to plunge ahead with moves to become a leading international city for education, said authorities.

The newly built Shanghai New York University, which brings New York University and East China Normal University together on the same campus and will open its classrooms to students in the fall of next year, is expected to help the city reach its goal of attracting 150,000 international students by 2020, more than tripling the 47,731 international students enrolled in the city last year.

Another 17.7 billion yuan of the city's education budget will go towards local university students, while students in high school, elementary school and kindergarten will receive 47.3 billion yuan.

Benefit for the city's educational development as a whole is the main purpose behind the spending for the students, said authorities. As such, specific funds have been reserved for hiring quality teachers, sending university professors overseas for learning-exchange programs, providing education subsidies for kids of migrant workers and building elementary schools in rural communities, said Xue.