All students in compulsory education will receive free textbooks starting from the spring semester of 2017, the finance and education ministries announced on Friday.

Yu Weiping, vice-finance minister, said the students will also be exempt from tuition and other education fees.

The Chinese government started offering free textbooks in 2008, and a report released last year by the China National Center for Student Financial Aid showed that in 2013, about 86 percent of the 138 million students in the nine-year compulsory education period were using free textbooks.

The new policy will cover students from private schools.

Chen Shun, assistant education minister, said the policy - one of the most important measures taken by the ministries to make compulsory education fairer - will benefit at least 12 million private school students, enabling them to enjoy the same financial support from the central government as peers from public schools.

Xiong Bingqi, vice-president of 21st Century Education Research, applauded the policy as good news, particularly for those studying at schools open to the children of migrant workers.

"Many such schools in big cities of China are operating in poor conditions without financial support from the government, and students in these schools are especially in need of support, including free textbooks," he said, adding that the implementation of the new policy will greatly promote fairer education across the country.

According to Yu, local governments will also undertake a certain proportion of the funding. In the next two years, central and local governments will invest more than 15 billion yuan ($2.35 billion) to ensure the implementation of the policies.

The public budget for compulsory education has increased greatly over the past decade, from 243 million yuan ($38 million) in 2005 to 1.2 trillion yuan last year, an annual growth of 19.4 percent.