The State Council, China's Cabinet, recently issued guidelines to promote the country's balanced development of education so as to narrow the gap between urban and rural education resources and make education fairer.

The guideline puts forward 10 measures to promote the integration of urban and rural compulsory education, including building urban and rural schools hand in hand, coordinating the distribution of teachers, guaranteeing rural teachers' salaries and better care for and protection of left-behind children.

According to the guidelines, by 2020 the urban-rural gap in education should be basically eliminated, compulsory education should be coordinated with urbanization, the distribution of urban and rural schools should be more reasonable, and the number of teachers in urban and rural schools should be better balanced. By that time, the equality of basic public education in urban and rural areas should be achieved.

The State Council stressed the need for local governments to ensure the implementation of the reform measures and for them to strengthen their supervision and inspection to achieve the objectives.

Compulsory education is one of the most important social responsibilities. It is a public welfare undertaking the country must advance.