Mar. 16, 2018 -- Deputies to the NPC and members of the CPPCC National Committee attend the two sessions in Beijing. [Photo/China Daily]

Training a necessity

"A village's future depends on talent, but now lower education and insufficient educational resources are still big gaps with those in cities," she said.

Although it is the first time she has participated at the NPC annual session, she brought four suggestions on how to improve the quality of education in villages and is willing to speak about them in discussions.

Hou Zhanying, 35, a new NPC deputy from Beijing, said she prefers learning from senior deputies at first, "because everything in the session for me is brand-new, which makes me a little bit anxious."

Hou said being a good deputy is not easy. She received training and had some classes organized by the NPC Standing Committee before the session. The training helped her understand more about what the NPC is, what a deputy should do and how to be a qualified lawmaker during the next five years, she said.

According to the NPC Standing Committee, all new deputies are given their "first lesson" ahead of the session, which this year opened on March 5. They were required to learn basic knowledge of the legislature and laws, as well as brush up on economics and budgeting.

Training NPC deputies started in 2005. Between 2013 and 2017, the period of the 12th NPC, its Standing Committee organized 22 such classes to educate deputies about 5,520 times, sufficient to train each new deputy at least once or more.

The 12th NPC Standing Committee said its goal was to satisfy the study demand of grassroots deputies, making sure each was trained at least once.

Xie Rirong, deputy director of the NPC training center, said: "Our training is organized and well planned, as it is to let deputies know what political affairs take place as well as what responsibilities they should shoulder and what duties they should have."