The Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region‘s Education Dept reports that it has raised the food allowance for students in compulsory education from 3 yuan ($0.48) to 4 yuan and that this has benefited nearly one million middle school students since it was implemented last November, according to news.iyaxin.com.

The region began looking at ways to improve student diets in March 2012 and has spent nearly 1.7 billion yuan while getting more than 1.4 billion yuan from the central government. It put 593 million yuan into food allowances last year and says that it plans to raise it to 7 million yuan this year.

By Yang Fan and edited by Roger Bradshaw