【正文】 zed by the phrase “active encouragement, strong support, proper guidelines, and sound management” (jiji guli, dali zhichi, zhengque yindao, jiaqiang guanli). Under such a legal framework, coupled with the “decentralization” policy context, China’s education development has been significantly diversified, particularly when the Chinese state attempted to encourage all democratic parties, people bodies, social organizations, retired cadres and intellectuals, collective economic organizations and individuals subject to the Party and governmental policies, actively and voluntarily to contribute to developing education by various forms and methods (Wei and Zhang, 1995, ). As of 1998, there were 1277 minban (peoplerun or munityrun) higher education institutions in China. In 2000, nearly 1 million students registered in the minban higher learning institutions in the whole country (Yang, 2002). Table 2 shows the number of minban higher education institutions in mainland China from 1996 to 2001. Within a relatively short fiveyear period, minban higher education institutions already increased from 1219 to 1758。 admitting thousand students (see table 3). In 2002 alone, there were around 133 degreegranting institutions in mainland China, admitting 311,200 students and constituting about percent of regular higher education n institutions’ student enrolments. Other 1202 nondegree awarding minban higher education institutions existed in China, recruiting about 1,403,500 students. Table 2: Number of Minban Higher Education Institutions in Mainland China Year199619971998199920002001Total12191115127713211758Minban HEIs* authorized to issue academic qualification212022374389Minban HEIs providing staterecognized credential programs89157300370467436Other Minban HEIs110910951200124012821202Source: State Committee of Education。 Ministry of Education * HEIs stand for higher education institutionsTable 3: Number of Students enrolling in Minban Higher Education Institutions (Unit: Thousand people)Year199619971998199920002001Total12041488Minban HEIs authorized to issue academic qualification12164068140Minban HEIs providing staterecognized credential programs94258297321Other Minban HEIs1084119011849821130Source: State Committee of Education。 Ministry of EducationMore recently in 2004, the China Education and Research network reported that there were more than 70,000 minban education institutions, enrolling over million students. Among them around 1,279 were minban higher education institutions, with a total enrolment of million students. It was reported that about registered dozens of large minban higher education institutions could admit over 20,000 to 35,000 students (Lu and Gu, 2004). With the enactment of the Law on Private Education Promotion in December 2002, minban higher education institutions have been given legal rights and interests, as well as a reasonable return on investment (Welch, 2004). The continual increase in the number of enrolments in these minban higher education institutions has indeed shown that the market, nonstate sector and other local forces have been revitalized and mobilized to finance and provide more learning opportunities for higher education (Lin et al., 2005). All these nonstate funded or minban educational institutions adopt feepaying principles and they offer diversified education services to Chinese citizens. Education provision, seen in this light, has never been the state’s business and state monopolization of education is over, especially when the nonstate sectors and actors, as well as market principles and practices, are being increasingly prominent in education provision (Ngok and Kwong, 2003). Overcharging Students and Commercializing Education With reductions in state financing in education, local governments and individual education institutions have attempted to increase the student intake and tuition fees in order to generate additional revenues for financing educational developments and improving teachers’ ines. Some local education ministries and individual schools / higher education institutions have charged unreasonable fees from students in recent years. According to Yang Dongping, one of the leading education policy analysts in mainland China, the fee charging situation at the basic education has bee worse since the students and parents have been asked to pay more for education. Comparing the total fees being contributed by parents among 50 counties of 2002 with that of the previous year, it recorded about % increase. The same study also reports among these 50 counties, a high proportion of them (45 counties) were blamed for overcharging students and parents for education related fees. From 2001 to the end of 2004, a study reports overcharging students of billion yuan by local education ministries / governments, similar malpractice was found among local high schools and primary schools by overcharging parents for billion yuan. Another case discovered that 10 schools in Peishui County at Jiangsu province imposed unreasonable fees and charges to students up to 3049 thousand yuan, accounting for 39 % of the total school fees (Yang, 2004). According to the annual audit exercise in 2004, the National Auditing Department discovered a number of education ministries across the whole country had involved in a significant number of cases of corruption, overcharging fees and over borrowing loans from banks. In the same year, the Ministry of Education in Beijing also found that 18 state universities overcharged student fees by billion yuan. In 2003, one university in Beijing charged excessive fees from students up to 1866 thousand yuan, which certainly violates the state regulation by receiving students’ “donations” of 1035 thousand yuan. The Ministry also discovered that abou