In response to a growing number of complaints about increasing education costs, legislators in Shanghai called on the city government to better regulate tuitions at local primary and middle schools during Tuesday's session of the Standing Committee of the Shanghai People's Congress.

The congress, Shanghai's legislative body, will be in session until Friday, discus-sing a range of issues, including education and control of SARS.

Qu jun, deputy director of the Shanghai Education Commission, reported to the Congress Standing Com-mittee yesterday on new measures to regulate fees and punish schools that overcharge students.

This year, the commission will tackle the problem of schools charging "sponsorship fees" to enroll students who didn't score well on the city's high-school entrance exam, Qu said.

The commission will also set enrollment limits for all local public high schools and demand they set strict entrance requirements to avoid students buying their way into a good school, and require them to publish tuition costs, Qu said.

"We will severely punish officials who charge students randomly, lift or expand fees," said Qu.

Some schools were also found to overcharge students with additional fees for after-school classes.

As a result of government investigation, 5.02 million yuan (US$604,800) in overpayments was returned to students in 2001. The following year, however, that amount climbed to 11.8 million yuan, the commis-sion revealed.

Six headmasters were fired due to the investigation.

During the first four months of this year, 1.08 million yuan was returned and one headmaster was removed from his post, the commission said.

The commission also will require local schools to increase transparency by publishing fees in the media.

Since many of the problems occur at private schools, the commission will emphasize the tuition ceiling of 5,500 yuan per semester for private schools. That rule doesn't affect international schools.

Some legislators Tuesday called on the city govern-ment to increase funds for local primary schools to help halt the overcharging tendency.

"The government should appropriate more funds for education," said Xia Xiu- rong, a member of the standing committee.

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