According to the report of the Asian Development Bank, more than 70 countries and regions in the world have achieved free compulsory education. Except developed countries, most countries in Asia, including Laos, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Nepal and other countries whose per capita GDP is only China 1/3, have implemented free and compulsory education. Cuba's education expenditure accounts for 6.3% of GDP. Even in the most difficult times, 12 years of compulsory education is still implemented. The school not only does not charge tuition and fees, but also provides accommodation and uniforms free of charge. The number of people with higher education in Cuba accounts for 57% of the educated population. Xie Hongguang revealed in his report that from the domestic perspective, statistics show that the total tuition and miscellaneous fees in China in 2002 was 92.3 billion yuan, which is not a large proportion compared with the fiscal revenue of 654.38+089.04 billion yuan in that year. With China's current financial resources, it can afford free compulsory education. At present, the proportion of China's education investment in GDP is a little over 3%, which is lower than the world average of 5%. The report emphatically refutes the view that China has limited financial resources and can only develop its economy first and then its education. It believes that this is a short-sighted theory under the pretext of economic construction. The report said, first of all, many countries in the world can learn from the successful cases of giving priority to the development of education under economic difficulties. Secondly, we should also see that education investment and personnel training are efficient long-term investments. Some scholars estimate that the return on human capital investment in China may be as high as 30% to 40%. Considering that education can change the national quality, enhance social harmony and cohesion, and the return will be higher, we should increase investment. In addition, there is also a lot of room for reducing fiscal expenditure. It is estimated that China spends more than 600 billion yuan on buses and public funds to eat and drink every year. The report said: "The reform of these expenditures has been debated for many years, and many documents have been issued, but the results have been minimal. Its essence is how to turn soft constraints into hard targets. Optimistically, if the above expenditure is reduced to 1/3 for rural primary and secondary education, a big problem will be solved. " In his report, Xie Hongguang also calculated the extra compulsory education funds needed to extend the nine-year compulsory education to 12 years. Assuming that all school-age children can enter school according to law, the average annual compulsory education expenses of each primary school, junior high school and senior high school are 500 yuan, 1.000 yuan and 1.500 yuan respectively. According to data, in 2006, the cost of compulsory education in China was about 226 billion yuan. It is estimated that the national fiscal revenue in that year was 2,925.5 billion yuan, an increase of 289.9 billion yuan. In other words, the total amount of compulsory education funds in 2006 was less than the increase of fiscal revenue in that year. If the factors such as child mortality rate, saving of repeated use of textbooks, and school selection fees of famous key schools are taken into account, the actual investment in compulsory education is less than 200 billion yuan. Moreover, in the following years, with the gradual reduction of the number of students receiving compulsory education, even if the per capita cost level is improved, the total cost will generally remain at this level, and the total and incremental fiscal revenue will increase greatly every year. Considering that extending compulsory education will benefit nearly 200 million low-income families, the report thinks it is worthwhile to extend nine-year compulsory education to 12.