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China will begin training and granting accreditation to people involved in the preservation of cultural relics this year.

Shan Jixiang, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, made the announcement recently in Beijing during a national meeting of personnel.

Shan said the preservation of Chinese cultural relics is developing positively - but sustainable development hinges largely on human resource development.

He said some local governments currently use cultural relics administrations as repositories for incompetent employees, which hampers cultural relic preservation.

China currently has 70,000 people working in the field, of whom only 12 per cent had attended higher education institutions.

Damage was caused to 22 cultural relic sites at the Temple of Confucius (551 - 479 BC) in Qufu of East China's Shandong Province in December 2000 after local personnel splashed water and used abrasive materials to clean the ancient architecture.

Confucius, who lived during the late Spring and Autumn Period (770 - 476 BC) of ancient China, was said to have lectured 3,000 disciples while seated at the rostrum inside the Temple of Confucius, which was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1995.

Shan said similar destructive actions continue in China.

The meeting was told that China should grant accreditation for distinct aspects of cultural relics preservation, such as the leadership of archaeological teams, restoration, sales, auctions and preservation.

China should also establish a special licence for relic protection projects that require planning, implementing and supervising.

The science of cultural relics is a multi-discipline field to which China has provided inadequate training, he noted.

Specialist young professionals should be assigned to key posts and wide-scale training should commence immediately.