China on Thursday began a new project to tighten supervision and assessment to narrow the education gap between the east and the central and western regions, according to theMinistry of Education.

Third-party supervision and assessment will be introduced to promote education in the central and western regions, which have fallen behind the east, the ministry said.

The supervision and assessment will focus on seven aspects including vocational education, ethnic education and accesses to education for the disabled, according to the ministry.

The four-year project requires annual reports from 2017 to 2020 based on 265 indicators such as educational funding and school facilities, among others.

Details like classroom temperature, staff-student ratio and student numbers will be monitored.