China should make more efforts to improve the education of children in poor rural areas by drafting laws and installing a relative parity policy on education, a Chinese national legislator said Wednesday before the country's parliament annual session.

"Millions of new illiterates will appear in a dozen years to come if the existing inequality in education is not addressed," warned Hou Zixin, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC)and also president of the Tianjin-based Nankai University.

"We can't sit by and remain indifferent," Hou said.

Hou said many of the local governments at county level in China,particularly those of poor areas, could not make ends meet for rural compulsory education. Lots of rural kids have been forced todrop out of school for failing to pay schooling expenses.

A survey conducted by the Party School of Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, covering 16 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities including Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia, shows there has been a rebound in the rate of dropouts in rural schools. According to the survey, a large numberof farmers said it's "difficult or rather difficult" for them to pay for their children's educational expenses.

"We should pay due attention to the situation of nine-year compulsory education in the rural area," said Hou.

Hou said he will submit motions on making amendments to laws oneducation and compulsory education to avoid the rebound in illiteracy during the coming NPC annual session, which is scheduled to open on March 5.

A latest survey on the issues of imparity in China's higher learning shows rural population are much less educated than urban population. More than half of the rural population have received only elementary or lower schooling, but the figure for the urban residents is 16.3 percent.

Hou said the education of 2.5 million Chinese children of migrant workers is also a big problem. Under the existing educational system, these migrant kids do not enjoy normal educational opportunities if they are away from their hometowns.

He said parity in education is a component part of a "harmonious society" China is striving for. "It's our responsibility to work for such equality and parity in legislativework," said Hou.