7. Strengthen social development to promote people's well being
The best form of governance is that which puts people's wellbeing first. We must never lose sight of this and do more to improve the lives of our people and address their concerns. Growth in government revenue is slowing, but when it comes to getting things done for the welfare of the people, we mustn't drop a single thing.
-- We will promote growth in employment and new businesses.
We will pursue a more proactive employment policy and encourage business startups that create employment. This year, there will be up to 7.65 million college graduates. We will use multiple channels to increase employment and encourage entrepreneurship by implementing initiatives for promoting employment of college graduates and guiding them in starting up their own businesses. We will make good use of the surplus from unemployment insurance funds and increase funds for keeping job creation stable to provide skills training for laid-off enterprise employees and help them find new employment and offer basic needs assistance to those in urban areas who face difficulties in securing employment. Over 21 million training opportunities should be provided for migrant workers to improve their skills. We will strengthen assistance for flexible employment and new forms of employment. We will see that demobilized military personnel are settled into new jobs or have good access to employment and business startup services.
-- We will promote fairer access to quality education.
Education is where a country's future and its people's hopes and aspirations lie. We will allocate a greater share of funds for public education to the central and western regions and to remote and poor areas. We will unify the urban and rural mechanisms for funding compulsory education and improve conditions in boarding schools and schools which are badly built or poorly operated. We will support the development of kindergartens open to all children. We will see that special needs education is well provided. We will work faster to modernize the vocational education system and, type by type, begin waiving all tuition and miscellaneous fees at schools providing secondary vocational education. Students from families with financial difficulties will be the first to be exempted from tuition and miscellaneous fees at regular senior high schools. The salary and other benefits of teachers in rural areas will be increased. We will move faster to promote distance learning and expand the reach of quality educational resources. Institutions of higher learning should strengthen their teaching and their capacity for innovation. Regular undergraduate institutions will be encouraged to shift their focus toward providing applied education if they are in a position to do so. We will continue to help see the increased enrollment of students from poor rural areas into key colleges, and improve and implement policies enabling children who live with their migrant worker parents to go to secondary school or take college entrance exams in their city of residence. We will support the development of privately run educational institutions and work to ensure they meet all relevant standards.
Education should promote the moral, intellectual, physical, and artistic development of students, and particular attention should be given to fostering all kinds of high-caliber creative talent. Families, schools, governments, and our society as a whole must together shoulder the responsibility of ensuring our children, our hope for tomorrow, are safe, healthy, and can grow up with the opportunity to reach their full potential.
-- We will advance the coordinated reform of medical services, medical insurance, and the medicine industry.
Health is at the root of happiness. This year, we aim to realize full coverage of the serious disease insurance scheme, and government funding for the scheme will be increased to reduce the financial burdens of more people suffering from serious diseases. The central government will allocate 16 billion yuan to be used in both rural and urban areas for medical assistance and subsidies, an increase of 9.6% over last year. We will merge the basic medical insurance systems for rural and non-working urban residents and raise government subsidies for the scheme from 380 to 420 yuan per capita per annum. We will reform the ways for making medical insurance payouts and expedite the building of a nationwide network for basic medical insurance so that medical expenses can be settled where they are incurred via basic medical insurance accounts.
We will see that more cities participate in piloting comprehensive public hospital reform; move forward in a coordinated way with medical service pricing reform and reform in medicine distribution; and deepen the reform of the evaluation and approval systems for medicines and medical equipment. We will move faster to train general practitioners and pediatricians. We will carry out trials for tiered medical services in around 70% of prefecture-level cities, increase basic annual per capita government subsidies for public health services from 40 to 45 yuan, and see that more medical resources are channeled toward the community level in urban areas and toward rural areas. We will encourage the development of privately run hospitals. We will promote the development of traditional Chinese medicine and the medical traditions of ethnic minorities. We will establish HR and remuneration systems suited to the medical sector to motivate medical practitioners and protect their enthusiasm. We will work to ensure harmony in the relationship between doctor and patient. We will improve the supporting policies to complement the decision to allow all couples to have two children.To see that the health of our people is protected, we will speed up the development of unified and authoritative safety monitoring systems for food and pharmaceuticals and reinforce every line of defense from the farm to the dining table, and from the enterprise to the hospital. This should ensure that people have access to safe food and medicine and can have confidence in what they are eating and taking.
-- We will build an extensive and tightly woven social safety net.
We will continue to raise basic pension benefits for retirees. Local governments need to fulfill their duties to ensure that pension benefits are paid on time and in full. We will work out methods for putting a portion of state capital into social security funds. Initiatives will be launched to pilot comprehensive reform of the elderly care service industry, and progress should be made in developing a variety of forms of combined medical and care services for the elderly. We will implement the temporary assistance scheme and the system for providing basic assistance to persons living in extreme poverty, appropriately determining how much to grant and improving how it is granted. Per capita subsidies for subsistence allowances in rural and urban areas will be increased by 8% and 5%, respectively. We will speed up the development of social assistance systems so that people with urgent needs have access to assistance and support, helping society become a caring and warm one.
-- We will promote the reform and development of the cultural sector.
We will draw on the Chinese Dream and socialism with Chinese characteristics to build consensus and pool strength, nurture and practice the core socialist values, and make greater efforts to foster patriotism. We will carry out an initiative to encourage innovation in philosophy and the social sciences. We will promote the development of literature and art; the press and publishing; radio, television, and film; and archiving. New types of Chinese think tanks will be developed. China's cultural relics and intangible cultural heritage will be more effectively protected and put to better use. We will support popular activities which promote cultural and ethical progress. We will work to foster a love of reading in our people, popularize scientific knowledge, promote the spirit of science, improve the overall caliber of the population and raise the level of civility in society. We will promote the integrated development of traditional and new media. We will encourage the development of a healthy online culture. We will work to deepen cultural exchanges with other countries and strengthen our capacity for international communication. We will deepen structural reform of the cultural sector, see that more public cultural resources are made available in rural and urban communities, promote the creative development of the cultural sector, see that markets for cultural products and services flourish, and strengthen regulation of such markets. We will enable more households to enjoy digital broadcasting. We will make thorough preparations for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. We will encourage new trends in popular fitness activities.
-- We will strengthen and develop new forms of social governance.
We will make sure foundational work and work at the community level is carried out to proper effect. We will promote urban and rural community development and encourage democratic consultation at the community level. We will support the participation of people's organizations, such as trade unions, Communist youth league organizations, and women's federations, in social governance. We will move faster to untie industry associations and chambers of commerce from any connections they still have with the government. Social organizations will be developed and regulated in accordance with the law, and support will be given to the development of specialized social work, volunteer services, and charity. We will step up the development of the social credit system. We will ensure the full protection of the rights and interests of women, children, and people with disabilities, and strengthen support and services provided to the children, women, and elderly who remain in rural areas while their family members work away in the cities. We will deepen the reform of the judicial system, work to raise public awareness of the rule of law, begin to implement the seventh five-year plan for increasing public knowledge of the law, and see that a good job is done in terms of legal aid provision and community corrections. We will improve the national system for cybersecurity. New ways will be developed to improve the mechanisms for maintaining law and order, an IT-based system for crime prevention and control will be developed, unlawful and criminal activities will be punished in accordance with the law, and violent terrorist activities will be dealt with severely. All these steps will ensure people's security. We will improve on work related to the handling of complaints made by letter or in person and refine the mechanisms for multimodal dispute mediation, so as to address disputes and ensure social peace and harmony.
Nothing is more valuable than life, and ensuring public safety is of paramount importance. We must continue our efforts to ensure workplace and public safety, improve safety infrastructure and build capacity to prevent and mitigate disasters, enhance monitoring, early-warning, and emergency response mechanisms, improve meteorological services, and deliver a good performance in seismology, surveying, mapping, and geology. We will improve and implement the system of accountability, management, and evaluation for workplace safety to ensure that both CPC committees and governments are held accountable and that officials take responsibility for workplace safety in performing their duties, and intensify efforts to see that those who fail to uphold safety standards are held accountable. We will tighten oversight and law enforcement to guard against and prevent the occurrence of major workplace accidents and protect the lives and property of our people.
