In the beginning of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, the State Education Commission and the Ministry of Finance co-implemented the Project of Spreading Compulsory Education in Poor Areas. It is anticipated that more than one million yuan of funds will go to the project, of which 3.9 billion yuan will come from central finances, with local finances making up not less than half of the central contribution. From 1995 to 1997, the fund from the central finance was mostly used in 12 provinces in the middle part of the country.

In May 1995, the Project of Helping the Poor by Education, a cooperation between China and the UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was started. It aims to help poor people in 22 nationally-selected poor counties in Gansu, Guizhou, Guangxi, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan, Jilin and Anhui to alleviate poverty and become prosperous through education and training. This project, in a 3-year cycle, is an open cross-trade and cross-regional plan involving departments of education, science and technology, culture, publicity and departments responsible for aiding the poor. UNESCO put US$100,000 into the project and the counterpart funding was to be raised by each province. The initial phase of the project focused on illiterate sons of rural young and middle-aged laborers, women, girls and ethnic minority groups.