BEIJING -- The number of students dropping out of school before completing nine years of compulsory education in China fell to 831 at the end of November, down from around 600,000 in early 2019, an official with the Ministry of Education (MOE) said Thursday.

At the end of 2019, the rate of completion of the country's free nine-year compulsory education was 94.8 percent, up 1.8 percentage points from 2015, Lyu Yugang, head of the MOE's basic education department, told a press conference.

"The cut in the number of dropouts has laid a solid foundation for meeting the government's goal of achieving 95 percent completion rate by 2020," Lyu noted.

China provides nine years of free compulsory education, including six years of primary and three years of junior high school education.