Protecting minority cultures

Zhou Xiaoting and Zhou Xiaole are two sisters of the Jinuo minority group from the Jinuo Mountain in Yunnan. Zhou Xiaoting, 18, recently graduated from a vocational school where she learned some basic computer skills. Zhou Xiaole, 16, was admitted to the same school this summer.

The sisters' family lives with dozens of households in a small mountain village, with houses typical of the Jinuo minority—an all-wooden structure with two floors.

The sisters share a computer with Internet access and an exercise machine in their second floor bedroom. They also have a TV with a satellite receiver in their living room that gives them access to more than 50 channels. Like city girls of their age, the Zhou sisters are fans of pop singers from Hong Kong, Taiwan and across the mainland.

Tuition for the vocational school is covered by the government, and the sisters only need 200-300 yuan ($29.3-43.9) a month for extra expenses. Needless to say, dropout rates due to financial problems are non-existent, the elder Zhou sister said.

The Jinuo minority group has a population of more than 20,000. Since the group has its own spoken language but no written language, students learn Mandarin Chinese at school and speak in their native tongue at home. To preserve Jinuo's language and culture, the local government recorded the spoken language and sponsored some of the group's gatherings and customs.

Most of China's ethnic minority groups are found in the western region. According to China's policies related to minority groups, children receive a free education and bilingual teaching is provided in regions where the minority group has its own written language, such as in Xinjiang and Tibet.

The Chinese Government has emphasized the importance of education by building a number of vocational schools, training bases and internship bases since 2000. From 1999 to 2007, the number of colleges and universities in the region increased from 251 to 467, and new enrollment and the number of registered students increased 2.9 times and 3.6 times, respectively.

Rural and urban areas have seen their healthcare service system develop rapidly since the implementation of the development strategy, which has led to improvements in healthcare quality. According to NDRC statistics, the number of beds in medical care facilities reached 1.08 million and medical professionals increased to 1.5 million, up 32.1 percent and 6.4 percent, respectively, from 1999.

To raise the healthcare standard in the western region, a disease prevention and control system and a medical rescue system for public health event were established alongside 16,440 township health centers and 180,000 village clinics. The efforts have shown successful results—the infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate have decreased remarkably and about 85 percent of the rural population is now covered by the new rural cooperative medical system.

From 2000 to 2008, the Central Government allocated 60 billion yuan ($8.78 billion) to reduce the region's impoverished population, cutting the number from 57.3 million to 26.5 million. The reduction accounted for 56.9 percent of the nationwide total during the same period.