BEIJING -- China spent 4.25 trillion yuan (around $614 billion) on education in 2017, a 9.45-percent increase from 2016, said an announcement Monday.

More than 3.42 trillion yuan of the input was fiscal expenditure, up 8.95 percent from the previous year, accounting for 4.14 percent of the country's GDP, making 2017 the sixth consecutive year that the number was over 4 percent, according to the announcement jointly issued by the Ministry of Education, National Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Finance.

Also, 20.33 trillion yuan of China's total public finance expenditure in 2017 was on education, accounting for 14.71 percent of the total.