As China is hosting the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games, education for the country's 83 million disabled, believed to be a key to their career success and integration into the society, has received unprecedented attention from both the state leaders and general public.
When the country's 24th Teachers' Day fell on Wednesday, which was also the fourth day of the Beijing Paralympic competition, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited a deaf-mutes school in central China's Henan Province, praising the teachers there for bringing sunshine and hope to the disabled children with their love and hard work.
"The cause of education for disabled people deserved respect from the whole society," he said.
In the classrooms, the president told the students about the significance of the ongoing Beijing Paralympics, and encouraged them to build themselves a bright future with the help of the society and the teachers.
On the same day, an official disclosed that China has decided to allocate 600 million yuan (about 87.7 million U.S dollars) to build 190 schools for the disabled this year.
The fund is 10 times the overall government subsidy for education for the disabled in the ten years from 1991 to 2001, according to Sun Xiande, deputy director-general of the China Disabled Persons' Federation.
Since the beginning of its reform and opening-up drive 30 years ago, China has remarkably improved its education system for people with disabilities, which covers fundamental education, vocational training, and higher education on and off campus.
By 2007, there were 1,667 schools dedicated to vision and hearing impaired and intellectually disabled children, while other schools also opened 2,803 classes exclusively for those kids, according to statistics from the China Disabled Persons' Federation.
A total of 580,000 disabled students were enrolled in 2007, compared with a mere 47,200 in 1986, said the federation.
And China's law on the protection of disabled persons has guaranteed their access to ordinary schools, including universities and colleges.
The amendment to the law, which took effect on July 1 this year, stipulated that local governments should provide free textbooks for disabled students during their nine-year compulsory education and also subsidize disabled students in high schools and colleges.
By 2007, nearly 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities had established local subsidy schemes for disabled college students.
Guan Yan, who works as a volunteer of language service during the Beijing Paralympics, has benefited from the development of education for the disabled.