A total of 500 million yuan (around $79 million) from China's lottery earnings has been used to financially support underprivileged school students and teachers, the education ministry has said.

At least 200 million yuan -- or 2,000 yuan each -- was given to 100,000 promising high school students from poor families in Yunnan, Guizhou, Gansu and Henan provinces in 2011, Xinhua reported.

Another programme financially supported 30,000 poor high school teachers with 10,000 yuan each in seven regions including the Muslim-populated Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

The central government has pumped in more than 30 billion yuan ($4.8 billion) to financially support four million college students and 16 million working school students.