China's scientific and technological innovativeness has improved noticeably, and education developed vigorously in the past five years, said Premier Zhu Rongji Wednesday, when he delivered the Report on the Work of the Government at the opening of the First Session of the Tenth National People's Congress.

¡¡¡¡During these five years, significant headway was made in basic research and high-tech and applied technology studies. Significant progress was made in establishing China's innovation system.

¡¡¡¡According to the report, remarkable achievements were scored insuch fields as information technology, life science and aeronautical and space technologies. A detailed map of rice genome was completed, an experimental 10 mw high temperature gas-cooled reactor was built, a super-large parallel processing computer was developed, and the Shenzhou series of spacecraft was successfully tested. All these achievements show that China ranks among the advanced countries in the related fields.

¡¡¡¡A number of key state laboratories were completed, several major scientific projects were carried out, and work was begun on building a number of national engineering research centers. The process of applying scientific and technological achievements to industrialized and commercial production was noticeably accelerated. More than 140,000 science and technology achievements underwent state registration in these five years, and 520,000 patents were granted. Protection of intellectual property rights improved.

¡¡¡¡In the past five years, areas where the nine-year compulsory education had basically become universal and where illiteracy among the young and middle-aged had been basically eliminated accounted for 65 percent of the Chinese population in 1997, and the figure rose to 91 percent in 2002. Senior secondary education was strengthened.

¡¡¡¡Institutions of higher learning have enrolled more students every year since 1999, and the admission rate for those taking thecollege entrance exams increased from 36 percent to 59 percent. In 2002, the student population in institutions of higher learning was 16 million, 2.3 times the 1997 figure. In these five years, 13 million junior and regular college students and 310,000 graduate students graduated.

¡¡¡¡Privately-run schools developed rapidly. Competence-oriented education was given greater emphasis to ensure that students would develop in an all-round way, morally, intellectually, physically and aesthetically, the report says.

(Xinhua)