The General Office of the State Council has issued a circular requiring efforts to control the dropout rate of students to ensure the implementation of compulsory education.
The circular, made public at a Tuesday press conference, said such work is needed to ensure proper education for school-age children and make sure that by 2020, the percentage of students who drop out of school during the nine-year compulsory education period is reduced to less than 5 percent.
The circular said that different measures should be taken to limit the dropout rate to address the various reasons students quit school.
The quality of rural education should be improved to make schools more attractive to students, so that they will not leave school because of difficulties or weariness in study, according to the document.
Also, poverty relief work should be enhanced to prevent students from dropping out of school for financial reasons, it said, stressing preferential policies to support students from impoverished families, students with disabilities or those with disabled parents.
Moreover, the document called for improved educational investment, planning of school construction and development of boarding schools to solve the transportation problems of rural students.
It also required promotion of information technology to make more high-quality educational resources accessible to rural schools.
The circular stressed that employers are not allowed to hire children under the age of 16 and that parents or guardians of school-age children should make sure that students finish compulsory education.
It also asked schools to establish systems to help dropouts return to school.
The circular said supervision and assessment systems will be improved to scrutinize relevant government work in controlling the dropout rate, and more publicity is also necessary to raise public awareness in this regard.
China provides nine years of free and compulsory education, including six years of primary education and three years of junior middle school education.
The percentage of students who dropped out of school during the compulsory education period was reduced to 6.6 percent in 2016, according to figures released by the Ministry of Education (MOE).
"Remarkable results have been achieved so far, but we still face great challenges to further cut the dropout rate and meet the 2020 target," said Lyu Yugang, head of the basic education department under the MOE.
The nine years of compulsory education cannot be completed by children from a few rural areas, particularly those from border and ethic minority regions that live in absolute poverty, Lyu said.
Inspections will be carried out across the country, Lyu said, adding that parents found not to have sent their children to school for compulsory education shall be held accountable for breach of the compulsory education law, Lyu said.
A separate guideline on education of morality for elementary and secondary schools was also made public at the press conference.
Moral performance will be regarded as a primary criterion for teachers' evaluation, promotion and awards, according to the guideline.
