Education spending should amount to 6 percent of the GDP during the new five-year period while education in impoverished areas should be effectively improved to fairly allocate resources. Moreover, a special fund should be established to subsidize teachers in poor areas to ensure a 20 percent increase in their incomes.

In addition, authorities should make it a priority to investigate cases in which substitute teachers are employed to teach in a primary or middle school but are paid less than the official payroll. Rural areas should be granted more official quotas in order to guarantee the treatment and status of local teachers.
Also, the system of performance-based pay needs reform. Teaching skills and moral behavior should be emphasized equally when evaluating teachers. The president and other senior management officials of a school should also be evaluated by the teaching and administrative staff.

Wang Hui is an NPC deputy and a professor from Tsinghua University.

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The lack of high-quality educational resources has emerged as a prominent problem for rural areas—poverty-stricken border regions and islands in particular.
 

The “Internet Plus” initiative can be applied to the reform of urban and rural education, enhancing the innovation capacity of rural schools and optimizing resource allocation. This can help improve the job security of teachers, thus ensure teaching quantity and quality. And the ultimate goal is to reduce poverty in these areas.
 

To be specific, pilot programs should be conducted in weak schools of remote regions. In addition to infrastructure construction, unified management should be strengthened to realize synchronous teaching. To fully tap the potential of the Internet Plus education strategy, it is essential to increase appropriation in information technology while accelerating poverty relief through information-based education in central and western rural regions of China.
 

Ma Min is a CPPCC member and secretary of the Party committee of Huazhong Normal University in Hubei Province.

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Intelligent manufacturing is the key to maintaining the competitive advantages of Chinese manufacturing and a fundamental way for China to shift from a large manufacturing country to a powerful one.
Above all, we should speed up the upgrading of traditional manufacturing. At the same time, we should seek new points of growth in global manufacturing reform while forestalling the rise of some emerging industries, such as intelligent robotics and high-end smart equipment.
 

Also, emphasis should be put on the application and innovation of advanced technologies and models that will lead to the next industrial revolution. We should develop advanced technologies, such as “collaborative production commerce” and bionic machinery.
 

It is vital to strengthen cooperation between intelligent manufacturing and producer services, including research and development, industrial design, logistics, and financial services. This will promote high-tech manufacturing and lower production costs.
 

Xiang Xiaomei is an NPC deputy and director of the Institute of Industrial Economy at the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences.

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A holistic approach is needed to promote ecological progress. Through mergers and integration, ministries and commissions can have equal rights and thus realize top-down, efficient administration based on their functions. The central government should appoint a leading group to coordinate the implementation of ecological protection initiatives, which will remove administrative barriers caused by conflicting interests between departments.
 

Moreover, the system for payment-based resource use and compensation for ecological conservation should be improved. Ecological compensation should be legislated and included into the evaluation of local economic and social development. And the government should introduce a property system of natural resources characterized by clear ownership and responsibilities as well as strict supervision.
 

Ge Jianping is a member of the CPPCC Standing Committee and vice-president of Beijing Normal University.

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Colleges and universities should innovate in entrepreneurship education while drawing on their advantages in disciplines and specialties in order to cultivate entrepreneurial talent. It is also important to improve the financial system to support university students who wish to start businesses.
 

In addition, we need to further promote research cooperation between enterprises and universities. Market-oriented entrepreneurship education requires the participation of different sectors. Regions and universities should be encouraged to establish scientific and innovation parks, start-up incubators and bases for small start-ups, which will serve as platforms for entrepreneurship education that provide practice, demonstration and training.

Zhang Qianhong is an NPC deputy and vice-president of Zhengzhou University.

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Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) focuses on the harmony of the human body and mind while putting more emphasis on the role of the inner mind. TCM’s proposition to preserve health and prevent disease, in essence, encourages people to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Since human behaviors are determined by inner thinking and perception, which are elements of culture, TCM culture should be taken into consideration when building a “Healthy China.”
 

TCM philosophies are conducive to a harmonious medical environment and sound social development. TCM instructs doctors to abide by medical ethics and patients to take responsibility for their health problems, which can help improve the relations between doctors and patients.
 

As a consequence, the role of TCM in guiding every aspect of living should be fully realized. Moreover, a national scientific research program should be conducted to explore the value of TCM to present and future generations.
 

Zhang Qicheng is a CPPCC member and director of the School of Chinese Classics at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine.

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There are more than 130 languages and more than 60 characters for Chinese ethnic minorities. Statistics show that over 20 of these languages are on the verge of extinction, 15 of which are used by fewer than 1,000 people.
 

To better protect and develop ethnic minority languages and preserve the diversity of languages, more efforts and funds should be invested to expand the use of and enhance the vitality of these languages.
 

Legislation is needed to build a database of endangered languages. Field investigation should be conducted on a large scale to record endangered languages and set up a written and spoken database, especially a multimedia database presenting textual, oral, visual and video materials. Also, demonstration areas should be established to expand the influence of endangered languages.
 

Chao Ke is an NPC deputy and secretary of the Party committee of the Institute of Ethnic Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.