Jinan, capital of East China's Shandong province, has made significant progress in educational development over the past five years, successfully realizing its major goals for the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20).

Official data show that from 2016 to 2019, the Jinan government spent 3.59 billion yuan ($549.9 million) on preprimary education, with an average annual growth rate of 27.84 percent.

In the past three years, the city has built and upgraded more than 280 public kindergartens in an effort to improve preprimary education.

The city has also increased support for private kindergartens and encouraged more nongovernmental institutions to run kindergartens.

In addition, a total of 105 kindergartens have been built in 94 towns throughout the city to help improve education in rural areas.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, a total of 719,000 students from impoverished families in Jinan received a combined total of 1.81 billion yuan in financial aid.

Throughout the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), the city plans to continue promoting preprimary education, strengthen management of kindergartens, and improve educational facilities.