BEIJING -?The government is considering providing more subsidies to poor students at vocational schools in order to meet the country’s rising demand for qualified technical workers, an educational official said.

“We aim to allocate more money to support vocational schools, to spare more poor students the burden of tuition,” Zhang Guangming, director of the China National Center for Student Assistance Administration, told China Daily.

There are 3.95 million vocational school students with family financial difficulties who benefited from the tuition-free policy in 2011, which accounted for 20 percent of enrolled students in the vocational sector in China. Exempted tuition fees amounted to as much as 7.9 billion yuan ($1.25 billion), according to Zhang.

“Policy on subsidizing students with financial difficulties in vocational schools has improved in 2010 and 2011,” Zhang said.

“In 2010, we provided our tuition-free benefit policy to poor students from cities, not just to ones from rural areas,” Zhang added.

In addition, many students benefited from State grants. More than 9 million students received grants of 13.6 billion yuan in 2011.