China to fund more poor students' higher education

China expects to transfer more financial resources into scholarships and grants for students living in extreme poverty, Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said Saturday.

Lou made his remark at the three-day "China Development Forum 2015," which started on March 21. The forum is hosted by the Development Research Center of the State Council.

According to Lou, the country has distributed too many resources to prestigious national universities, and it now needs to aid students whose smarts and talents have been shackled by destitution.

In response to a question raised by the audience about education reform, Lou said the Ministry of Finance can only help the authorities in charge of the issue promote the process.

In his response, he mentioned the de-administration of office management in universities, saying, "We can only help promote the de-administration process, but our ministry cannot play a major role in it."

He also said that universities, especially those aiming for top rankings and strong reputations in the international educational community, should be allowed more autonomy to build their own investment pools.

The minister also advised that vocational education should reflect market demand and said that the Ministry of Finance has its own criteria for evaluating the performance of such programs.

According to Lou, since the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in November 2013 – when the previous system of pegging highlighted budgets to fiscal revenue, expenditures and gross domestic product was scrapped – the Ministry of Finance has been able to challenge some institutions that were getting used to receiving official funds.

"If some recipients performed very badly and failed to meet our standards, then we were able to challenge their funding. But that has been all we can do," Lou said.

During his talk, Lou also corrected a point made by Takehiko Nakao, president of the Asian Development Bank, who said in his previous speech that China's transfer payment system – the redistribution of income through the market system – is based on the country's household registration system.

"Actually, our regional transfer payment system is already aligned with the number of permanent residents calculated by the statistics bureaus rather than with the household registration system," Lou said.

"We have lots to improve, but we have solved this particular issue."

The China Development Forum is an annual event initiated by the Development Research Center of the State Council in 2000. It is usually held after the conclusion of the country's Two Sessions.