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GENEVA, June 25-- Poverty reduction through education has played a fundamental role in the Chinese miracle of lifting more than 700 million people from absolute poverty in the past 70 years, a Chinese scholar said in Geneva on Tuesday. China's success in poverty reduction lies in basic education, vocational education and higher education, said Dr. Shang Haiming from the Human Rights Institute at Southwest University of Political Science and Law, in his speech here at the ongoing 41st regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Basic education to eliminate illiteracy and implement universal coverage of nine-year compulsory education has been very effective in poverty alleviation in China, Shang said, adding that China was one step ahead in targeting illiteracy way before 1960s, when the rest of the world began to pay attention. In 1949, Shang said, more than 80 percent of China's total population of 540 million were illiterate, with an even higher ratio of over 95 percent in the vast rural areas, he said. Thanks to decades of literacy efforts, the illiterate population was reduced from 432 million to 55 million, or to 4.08 percent, by 2010, despite the growth in overall national population from 540 million in 1949 to 1.34 billion. Meanwhile, the government-supported compulsory education has fundamentally elevated the overall educational level of the public, which has in turn largely advanced social equality and justice. | 
