bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Josephine Ma

The education minister says 395  headmasters have been fired for their role in collecting 853 million yuan

An inspection of more than 100,000 schools has found that students have been charged 853 million yuan in illegal fees last year, Education Minister Zhou Ji said yesterday.

He said 395 headmasters were among the 2,448 people fired or punished for imposing the fees. About 639 million yuan had been returned to parents after the inspections.

Illegal charges for everything from school uniforms to field trips are rampant in many areas, prompting the government to launch a far-reaching cleanup campaign.

But Professor  Zhou  said the problem would be hard to solve because the biggest motivation for schools to levy the charges was a serious  funding shortage.

'Sometimes I feel sympathetic to the headmasters. There are several [reasons] behind the illegal fees. Sometimes funding is not enough for the survival of the school and the headmaster has to raise funds through imposing fees,' he said.

'Another reason is to raise funds to accelerate the development and improve the quality of education offered by the schools and they have to charge the public.'

But Professor Zhou said there were also problems with corruption in local governments and among education officials who pocketed the fees.

The central government spent 340 billion yuan on education in 2002, taking up 3.41 per cent of gross domestic product,  18 per cent more than 2001.

While figures for last year were not available, Professor Zhou said spending was expected to increase more than 18 per cent again this year. The government has set a target of increasing spending on education to 4 per cent of GDP in the next few years.

'It is a large increase in five years, considering the GDP in China grows quickly,' Professor Zhou said.

But he said the funding shortage would continue,  particularly as demand for quality education was rising.

'We should be clearly aware of the sharp contradiction between the demand and the input of high-quality education ... there will always be a shortage of education funding,' he said.

Professor Zhou defended a policy to expand university enrolment  when many graduates had  difficulty finding jobs.  The number of university graduates rose  46 per cent to 2.12 million last year. The number of graduates this year will be 2.8 million.

But he said China would continue to expand tertiary education  and vocational training for young people to meet a shortage of skilled workers.

According to official figures, 90 per cent of the population has received nine years of compulsory education. But analysts believe that many young people in rural areas have been left out of the campaign.

The government had set a target to provide free education to 85 per cent of the population in the western region and reduce the illiteracy rate among  young people in the region to less than 5 per cent by  2007, Professor Zhou said.



Schools levy millions in illegal fees