In addition to money from the government, schools should raise their construction funds through co-operation with companies, bank loans and donations from society and overseas compatriots, Wang Yuxue, deputy inspector from the Guangdong provincial department of education, said on Wednesday.
"The multiple fund-raising channels will help Guangdong narrow the investment gap for the province's school construction and reconstruction," Wang said at a work conference on Wednesday.
Currently, school construction funds mainly come from the government, he said.
The latest official figures show Guangdong still has 3.43 million square meters of school buildings with "serious safety hazards". The unsafe schools represent about 25 percent of the province's total, according to officials at the conference.
These wooden and brick frame schools, which are mainly located in rural areas, threaten the lives of many students and teachers in the western, eastern and northern parts of the province, Wang said.
But the number of substandard schools in the province or the names of unsafe schools were not released.
Wang promised that inspectors will make unannounced, random visits to schools across the province. He also urged local governments to speed up school restorations and reconstructions in the following months to remove the hidden dangers.
Early this year, Song Hai, vice-governor of Guangdong, signed responsibility contracts with 21 cities addressing the safety of the school buildings.
Officials will be punished if accidents involving school safety take place in their cities.
Guangdong officials are planning to complete all the restoration and reconstruction projects for school buildings before the end of next year, Song said.
He urged the public and the media to supervise all the school restorations and reconstructions to ensure quality control.
In the city of Zhongshan alone, the local government has planned to invest more than one billion yuan ($147.1 million) to reconstruct and reinforce its schools before the end of next year.
Huang Yang, an official with the Zhongshan education bureau, said the city plans to complete 40 percent of the school reconstruction projects and half of the restorations within this year.
In addition to safety problems, the school buildings in need of reconstruction and reinforcement include those whose designs have failed to meet the national standards of earthquake resistance, Huang said.
School safety became a hot issue after many students in schools died in the 8 magnitude earthquake on May 12, 2008, in Southwest China's Sichuan province.
In 2009, the Ministry of Education launched a three-year safe campus campaign nationwide to reconstruct and consolidate schools with hidden dangers.
--By Zheng Caihong (China Daily),2010-07-01