China will allocate about 50 billion yuan (4.8 billion euros) every year starting this fall semester to help needy students, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.

An official with the Ministry said that the move would help advance educational equality, as will an earlier central government directive last year that exempts rural students from tuition and other fees during their nine-year compulsory education.

He said that about 4 million students in 1,800 colleges and universities and 16 million students at 15,000 secondary vocational schools would benefit from the program.

Providing more national scholarships, bursaries and loans to students will be the ministry's goal. Schools will also be asked to provide a certain amount of their earnings to support needy students, the same official said.