BEIJING - China's government will renovate school buildings in populous central and western regions with high earthquake risks during the next five years, Vice-Minister of Education Du Yubo said on Monday -- National Safety Education Day for Primary and Secondary School Students -- in Beijing.

Students practice how they should respond in the event of an earthquake at Weiwu Primary School in Bozhou city, Anhui province, on Monday -- National Safety Education Day for Primary and Secondary School Students. [Zhang Yanlin / for China Daily]

"We have finished the inspection and identification of all school buildings throughout the country in order to work out a project schedule of reconstruction and reinforcement," Du said at a press meeting on Monday. "We have established a safety database and information system."

Earthquakes, landslides and other natural disasters have placed Chinese schoolchildren in harm's way in recent years.

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The safety problem for schools differs from region to region and those in rural areas face more potential dangers than those in cities.

Du said the ministry plans to establish a safety alert mechanism for school buildings and to publicize the annual inspections of school buildings.

"The government will also strengthen technical guidance during the reconstruction process," he said.

Du said "education quality" and "education equality" top the ministry's agenda for the coming five years.

He promised to optimize the distribution of educational resources to make sure rural areas and less-developed regions receive more support, and to expand coverage and raise standards of educational subsidies.

The official also pledged to ensure the children of migrant workers have equal access to education in cities and to improve students' nutrition in less-developed areas

The nutrition of primary and junior middle school students is a "grave challenge" in underdeveloped rural areas, Xu Mei, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Education, said at the news conference.

Authorities in education, finance and health are working together on guidelines to push local authorities to pay more attention to the nutrition of students, she said.

The lack of dining halls in some boarding schools plus the poor financial background of students call for more attention from local authorities, she said.

In China, the central government pays for textbooks for primary and junior middle school students from poor families, while the local government offers food subsidies to poor students living and studying at boarding schools.

Since autumn last year, a primary school student from a poor family can receive an annual food subsidy of 750 yuan ($114) and a junior middle school student could receive 1,000 yuan per year, Xu said.

Since 2007, China has initiated a national project to renovate buildings at junior middle schools in rural areas in the country's central and western areas.

Of the 12 billion yuan invested in the project by the central government, a quarter is for the renovation of dining halls.