URUMQI -- Starting this fall, Xinjiang will send 5,000 people each year to the south of the region to work as bilingual teachers for local preschoolers, said local authorities on Saturday.

According to the education department of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the 5,000 people include 3,000 civil servants and 2,000 teachers, who will work for a year in Kashgar, Hotan, Aksu or the Kirgiz autonomous prefecture of Kizilsu.

Kashgar, Hotan, Aksu and Kizilsu have had a shortage of bilingual teachers in kindergartens, and many teachers cannot teach Mandarin Chinese.

Xinjiang plans to open or expand 4,387 kindergartens to serve as bilingual kindergartens in rural areas, including 3,223 in southern areas, in order to extend free three-year bilingual preschool education to the entire region.