The Ministry of Education has an EEMP department, whose responsibility is to guide and coordinate EEMP, plan and guide bilingual (Chinese and one of ethnic minority languages) teaching and teaching materials compilation, and coordinate education-oriented aid for ethnic minority areas. The education authorities of provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government) have a corresponding organ devoted exclusively or non-exclusively to administration over EEMP.
        The State Nationalities Affairs Commission has an education department, whose responsibility is to study major issues concerning EEMP reform and development, participate in studying and formulating EEMP policies and plans, raise special views and suggestions on EEMP development and help education departments in handling EEMP support affairs.
        The education department of any ethnic minority autonomy administers local education independently. Independent administration covers plans for local

education, the setting up of schools, and decisions on various kinds of school's setup, length of schooling, courses, teaching language(s), training programs and enrollment method.
        Since in ethnic minority areas people live in a widely scattered fashion, schools are run flexibly to suit local conditions. At the elementary education stage, there are mainly the following channels of education: independent ethnic minority primary schools and ethnic minority middle schools; ethnic minority classes run by county and township key primary and secondary schools; girls' classes and girls' schools in areas where people believe in Islam and in mountainous areas where school attendance is row among girls; mobile primary schools, morning-evening classes, even-day classes and contracted teaching spots in mountainous and pastoral areas which are populated sparsely and in a scattered way. At the higher education stage, there are