Guideline looks to curb school dropouts

All school-age children in China should attend primary and middle schools, unless they are unfit, a new guideline said on Monday.

Issued by the Ministry of Education and nine other departments, the guideline stressed the need to intensify efforts to prevent dropouts in the country's compulsory education system from first to ninth grade.

The number of dropout students in China has nose-dived from 600,000 in early 2019 to 6,781 on June 14, thanks to the nation's poverty alleviation efforts, the guideline said.