BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- China has an illiterate population of 114 million people and is battling with a lack of government funding to reduce the number, according to the Ministry of Education (MOE).

"China now has 114 million illiterate people, mainly distributed in poor areas, minority regions and remote areas and the biggest problem is a lack of funds," said Yang Jin, an official in charge of fundamental education with the MOE.

"The central government only appropriates eight million yuan (about one million U.S. dollars) each year to tackle illiteracy, which means each illiterate person only has seven cents (less than one US cent) a year," according to another MOE official who declined to be named. "And the increasing number of migrant workers has made education a tough task for the government," he said.

China has made great progress in eliminating illiteracy. Around 9.76 million illiterate people received education from 2001 to 2005, and China has maintained an illiteracy ratio of around 4 percent among the youth and the middle aged, Yang Jin said.

According to the National Report on China's Education for All, released by the MOE in 2005, the country's literacy rate among adults is 90.9 percent.

China has received 14 awards from the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) for making the achievements in eliminating illiteracy in the last two decades.

The Chinese government plans to eliminate all illiteracy among people aged between 15 and 24 by 2010.

The fourth edition of the Education For All Global Monitoring Report, which was released by UNESCO last year, said that around the world there are still 100 million children who cannot receive education, and 771 million adult illiterates. Most adult illiterates are women and live in rural areas.

It said three-quarters of the world's illiterate adult population were in just 12 countries -- India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Egypt, Brazil, Iran, Morocco and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Enditem