Ethnic minority education started from a low level and has a weak foundation. Every year, apart from normal financial appropriations for education in ethnic minority areas, the state provides such areas with a special financial subsidy for ethnic minority education. Since the implementation of an educational system under which elementary education is administered by local governments, of the state's annual financial appropriations for making primary school education universal, more than half go to nine provinces and autonomous regions with concentrations of ethnic minority people: Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Ningxia, Guangxi, Tibet, Qinghai, Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan. Ethnic minority areas also receive favorable treatment in the allocation of the state's special financial subsidies for teacher training and vocational education. From 1990, the state has been providing financial subsidies for ethnic minority education to the tune of 20 million yuan every year. In 1995 the state established a special fund for promoting compulsory education in poverty-stricken areas, to which the central government has contributed 3.9 billion yuan (with 10 billion yuan of matching appropriations from local governments), of which 2.2 billion yuan goes to nine provinces and autonomous regions with a concentration of ethnic minority people. In 1997 the state established a scholarship fund for compulsory education, which distributed a cumulative 130 million yuan in four years assisting children who have left school or suspended study owning to financial difficulties of their families, especially children of ethnic minority origin. Since the early 1990s, the state has used close to US$200 million in a World Bank loan in developing elementary education, with projects involving close to 200 counties with a concentration of ethnic minority population in the above-mentioned nine provinces and autonomous regions and in Hubei, Hunan, Gansu, Hebei, Heilongjiang and Hainan. In addition, local governments at different levels give financial support for ethnic minority education, and a considerable proportion of education-oriented donations from social circles goes to ethnic minority areas.