There were over 50 delegates from the relevant governmental agencies, Northwestern Agriculture and Forestry Technology University, and the leaders from the pilot counties and principals of pilot schools. The distinguished participants included Mrs. Fan Xiaomei, former Deputy Secretary of the 9th Standing Committee of the Shaanxi Provincial People’s Congress, who from very beginning gave a great support to this programme and some others.
The representative of Shaanxi Provincial Department of Water Resources gave a briefing on suggestions on the construction of water supply facilities for water- saving ecological campus in 7 rural schools. According to the principle of securing water safety, quantity and quality, water facilities and standardizing management as well as the demand of providing water to schools for cooking, toileting and greening gardens in campuses, the suggestions included, after considering the opinions of the education department, the project plan, feasibility study report, preliminary designing and implementation plan and auditing matters. In the suggestions, the responsibilities of the department of water resources during the implementation of the project were also identified. The introductions of 7 pilot schools were made. After the introductions, the experts, relevant leaders of pilot counties, departments of water resources and schools had discussions and asked the department of water resources to improve project proposal based upon these advices and cooperate with departments of education and schools in order to complete all construction work in selected campuses by the end of this year.
The Water- Saving Ecological Campus Construction is in line with the key points of the Central Committee's Document No. 1 for 2009 which focuses on enhancing campus environment of rural primary and middle schools and strengthening physique of students. On May 12, 2009, the On-site Conference on Rural Drinking Water Safety and Water- Saving Ecological Campus was held in Fengxiang County. The conference shared experiences of building up rural drinking water safety and water- saving ecological campus and discussed about measures and existed problems. The national and international experts on this conference also put forward their suggestions and recommendations for solutions.
According to the experts’ recommendations and the current problems of water supply issues, GWP China Shaanxi, after communications with water authorizes, carried out on-site survey on ten schools, developed project proposals and finally selected seven pilot schools.