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SCMP Reporter

CHINA'S education minister yesterday blasted the so-called elite schools saying they had no place in the socialist education system.

In a wide-ranging press conference organised by the National People's Congress, Zhu Kaixuan, head of the State Education Commission, said Marxism and Mao Zedong Thought would continue for a long time to be the guiding light for educationists.

Although China allows private education, Mr Zhu said the Government would not allow schools to charge 'exorbitant fees' and offer their students 'a luxurious way of life'.

Most of these elite schools are in Guangdong province and some charged up to 500,000 yuan (HK$458,500) in admission fees.

 Mr Zhu declined to say whether these schools would be closed down but he said the Government would order them to 'immediately stop such practices' and 'guide them onto the right track'.

  He said school fees charged by schools in China should be no more than 20 per cent of their education costs. The State Education Commission has set up a special taskforce to investigate the problem of 'exorbitant fees' headed by Vice-Director Liu Bun.

   Although China provides nine years of free education, many primary and middle schools have begun to collect fees from the students.

  Mr Zhu said many of these fees were in fact administrative charges passed on by the governments.

He pointed out that under the new Education Law which is to be passed by the congress later this week, schools can refuse to pay these administration charges.

  Speaking at the same conference, Mr Liu said the taskforce would call a national telephone conference at the end of this month to study the problems.

Although Mr Zhu said China would continue education exchanges with foreign countries, he stressed that the Government would not abandon the 'socialist characteristics' of its education system.

  He rejected a suggestion that China should copy the experience from Taiwan and said the standard of education in most developed cities in China was highly regarded by foreign educationists.

  'There are many common laws in education in different countries and we can learn from each other,' said Mr Zhu.

 'But there can be no doubt that we won't abolish Marxism or communist teachings in our curriculum. On the contrary, we would only strengthen them.'  But he admitted that due to poor facilities and a lack of resources, the level of education in rural parts of the country remained inadequate.

 Illiteracy remains a serious problem, with as many as three per cent of the children in the countryside still unable to go to school.

 Meanwhile, Mr Zhu said local governments in rural areas had difficulty paying teachers' wages last year.

 But he said it was because the Government had adjusted the salaries for teachers. The increase alone, according to Mr Zhu, amounted to more than 10 billion yuan last year.

'What happened was many of these governments could only afford to pay the basic wages but did not have money to pay for the increases.

'I am confident that with the passage of the Education Law this year, this problem can eventually be solved,' Mr Zhu said.

  Although Mr Zhu said China would not change its policy of sending students abroad for studies, he expressed concern that some foreign governments had used their immigration policies to persuade talented Chinese students to stay after completing their studies.

 He said only 75,000 of the 220,000 Chinese students who had left for overseas studies returned after graduation.



Elite schools warned on fees