Analysts and academics are concerned that fewer rural primary schools - which were reduced by half from 2000 to 2010 during an urbanisation push - may be contributing to an increase in school bus accidents. They were speaking in Beijing on Saturday at a seminar launching a research project by the 21st Century Education Research Institute on the general status of rural schools. The research is open-ended, and the hope is that it will be used in the future to improve the situation at such schools. Among the speakers was Liu Shanhuai from the Institute of Rural Education at Northeast Normal University in Changchun , Jilin , who said his research had found that the average distance between pupils' homes and schools was now more than 4.05 kilometres, raising the risk of accidents during the journey, The Beijing News reported. Under a government-sanctioned push, village schools in rural areas were ordered to close en masse at the turn of the century due to falling enrolments amid rapid urbanisation, as well as a sharp decline in the number of youngsters of school age. As a result, the number of rural schools fell 52.1 per cent, from 440,284 in 2000 to 210,894 in 2010. The rural primary schools that disappeared made up 81.3 per cent of the total primary schools that closed between 1997 and 2010, according to the Ministry of Education. The primary schools were closed against a backdrop of rural residents migrating to cities. Today, more mainlanders live in urban areas than the countryside, according to a report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in December. After nearby schools closed, pupils were forced to travel long distances to other schools, which had limited vacancies for boarders. Authorities have defended the closures, saying they were economical, efficient and gave pupils access to better learning at centralised schools. Professor Yuan Guilin , who teaches education at Beijing Normal University, said that many schools opted to transport pupils by bus rather than build expensive boarding facilities. Dozens of pupils have died in school bus accidents, including several in high-profile incidents, prompted central authorities to issue new school bus safety regulations that went into effect in late March. But Yuan said too many schools have shut down. 'The number of students fell by about one-third, but the number of schools dropped by half,' he said. Dang Guoying , a researcher with the Rural Development Institute at CASS, said that the rapid closure rate should be slowed and better managed, and that authorities should implement detailed regulations to control it. Deputy Education Minister Liu Limin last year ordered a freeze on school closures if schools could not find a way to safely transport pupils by bus. 52.1% The number of rural schools fell by this much, from 440,284 in 2000 to 210,894 in 2010