Leaders of Chinese universities, long responsible for everything from arranging students' room and board to fund-raising, will be getting help with these duties so they can devote more time to education.

Some service-oriented companies are being hired at Chinese universities to help manage the myriad details of campus life, right down to planning menus.

Chen Zhili, minister of education, said during a recent national conference on higher education that most Chinese universities will open their service departments to the market within three to five years.

"The universities will not undertake all things, instead, they will make use of outside resources as much as possible," Chen said.

China has 1,021 universities with over three million students. The Chinese government is trying to give education opportunities to more youngsters and swell university enrollment in the coming years.

But the backward service sector and lack of dormitory space has restricted the development of universities, Chen said.

It is estimated that Chinese universities need to spend at least 5.78 billion yuan (nearly 700 million US dollars) to build dorm space of 5.78 million square meters to accommodate the students.

Earlier, Chinese Vice-Premier Li Lanqing said that students and teachers cannot put their hearts into their work unless the general services on campus are improved.

Once the university enrollment rises, the market-oriented service sector will help push forward the reform of universities, some education experts say.

The idea for reform was initiated in the early 1980s when students complained about the cost and taste of school cafeteria food.

Now, some upgrades have been made and special services arranged. For example, the food services department at prestigious Qinghua University in Beijing has invested 24 million yuan over the past six years to improve the dining hall.

The service company in Zhejiang University in east China runs a supermarket with an annual income of 30 million yuan. Such companies enjoy preferential policies on land use, taxation and state-offered loans.

All of Shanghai's 37 universities will have their student services open to the market by the end of next year.

Yang Deguang, president of Shanghai Normal University, said that during the planned economy era, commodities were allocated by the government, and universities had to manage their own services.

"Now the abundant market supply allows us to offload the burden, " Yang said.