China will ensure every school and kindergarten has at least one security guard by 2013, Education Minister Yuan Guiren said on Thursday.

The minister also ordered schools to hold one emergency drill each term, organize security courses, improve security systems and strengthen security in human resources and technology.

The move comes after a number of school murders shocked the nation.

In Nanping county, East China's Fujian province, Zheng Minsheng, a local clinic doctor, stabbed eight students to death and injured five others in a primary school on March 23, 2010.

On May 12, 2010, Wu Huanming killed seven children and two women in a kindergarten in Nanzheng county in Northwest China's Shaanxi province. Another 11 children were injured.

In the few weeks between the two cases, school murders also happened in several other towns and cities including, Shanwei in Guangdong, Hepu in Guangxi, Leizhou in Guangdong, Taixing in Jiangsu and Weifang in Shandong. In all, 19 people were killed and almost a hundred were injured.

These incidents triggered a national alert for school safety.