'Money for entrance' lurks in college admissions

The "reserve plan" or "independent recruit plan," which is legal is widely used in Chinese colleges.

It is just a "small percentage" that breed corruption in educational fields, said Yin Fei, associate professor with the School of Education Science under Nanjing Normal University.

Through various reserve plans, colleges can decide the candidates internally, thus rich parents are carrying to colleges bags of cash so their child can get in through a plan, an unnamed parent in East China's Shandong province told reporters.

Another unnamed college staff member in Shandong revealed that his college earns more than 10 million yuan each year by trading entrance places included in the reserve plan.

"The 'money for entrance' practice has infringed upon the legal rights of most of students and blemished the fairness and justice of the CEE," said Yin.

According to a circular issued in May by the Ministry of Education, it ordered colleges to reduce the 5 percent quota for the reserve plan to 1 percent.

The ministry also said it prohibits and will seriously investigate colleges' illegal practice of "money for entrance" and students involved will not get registered.

The original intention of various reserve plans is to enhance the independence of colleges in recruiting, have a balance of where students come from and give opportunities to those who lack scores but are outstanding in other areas, according to Yin.

"However, in actual implementation, the quota for the plans are often goods traded between the rich and the powerful and a 'cake' shared by a small group with prestige," said Yin.

Zhang Yangsheng, a researcher of the Jiangsu Institute of Educational Science Research, said the most important way to curb the "money for entrance" practice is transparency, including publicizing information of all students recruited through the reserve plan and explain the reasons why they were recruited.

Zhang advised educational authorities to specify information transparency measures in relevant policies and regulations.

"Educational fairness is the cornerstone of social fairness as well as the duty and meaning of education. This bottom line must be stuck to." said Yin.