The draft, which has already gone through two revisions, makes it clear in its third edition that organizations and individuals will not be allowed to run schools for profit.

Zhou Keyu, vice-chairman of the Ninth NPC Law Committee, said in a report at Friday morning's session that the issue of whether the owner of the non-state-run schools could make a reasonable profit had been debated.

Allowing owners of the non-state-run schools to make a reasonable profit would probably lead to purely business behaviors and would also contradict the Education law, Zhou quoted some NPC Standing Committee members as saying. China's Education Law forbids any organization or individual to run schools or other educational institutions for profit.

However, as China is now in a bid to promote non-state-run education, said Zhou, there should be some measures taken to attract financial investment from the public.

To find a balanced solution to the problem, the draft says that the owners of the non-state-run schools could get "an appropriate compensation" from the school's profits for their investment.

As for the non-state-run schools who claim bankruptcy, their remaining assets, after liquidating all debts, would be used to develop non-state-run education under the arrangement of relevant government administrations, Zhou said.

Moreover, the draft also tightens the supervision of non-state-run schools, Zhou added. Students or their families could file complaints to educational administrations or other government offices concerned if their interests were violated, and those offices would deal with the complaints as soon as possible, according to the draft.

Official statistics show that by the year 2000, China had more than 60,000 non-state-run schools with over 10 million students on campus.

(Xinhua News Agency October 28, 2002)