Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has reduced or remitted tuition and fees for school supplies and textbooks for all students during the nine-year compulsory education period, media reported Thursday.
Xinjiang has provided free textbooks and waived tuition and other fees for 2.05 million students in 56 poverty-stricken counties since 2003, news website iyaxin.com reported.
School fees have also been waived for students in urban areas of the region since 2008.
The policy of "two exemptions and one subsidy" - exemption from miscellaneous fees and textbook fees in addition to subsidized living expenses for boarding students - was adopted by China in 2001, but is mainly implemented in poverty-stricken areas.
The State Council announced Wednesday that the policy will be expanded to both urban schools and private schools starting in 2017.
Xinjiang spent 50 billion yuan ($7.8 billion) per year on average on education over the past five years, and the share of Xinjiang's GDP that went toward education expenditures was higher than the nationwide required ratio of 4 percent, according to iyaxin.com.
Zhou Xiaoxi, a youth psychologist with the China Association for Mental Heath, told Xinhua that basic education in Xinjiang needs to be strengthened to help combat terrorism. "Free education in high schools will lift the enrollment rate of middle school graduates and will prevent them from being brainwashed by the extremist ideologies behind terrorism."
