Some material could also be diverted from areas hit by the Sichuan earthquake on May 12.

September 1 should be the first day back at school for students after summer vacation. Due to the earthquake, however, this was put back by a week. "The schools were damaged to different degrees. Some collapsed and some did not collapse, but are dangerously unstable," said Pang.

"Investigating the extent of damage to schools will take some days. Those with little damage will be able to reopen in a week. For students of those that are unstable or were destroyed, we have prepared more than 1,000 36-square-meter tents that can be used as temporary classrooms until the schools are rebuilt.

"For some places in the earthquake-hit areas reconstruction work will start later in September and the whole reconstruction work will not be finished before winter," said Huang. "We must work out a detailed plan for reconstruction as soon as possible."