The Ministry of Education (MOE) will continue to accelerate China's higher education system reform and push for changes in the college entrance examination system this year, a ministry official said on January 27 in Beijing.

In its working outline for 2000, the MOE said that it would increase the college enrollment quota to three million this year, a rise of 300,000 over last year.

The MOE will also spur the overhaul of the college enrollment method, hoping to raise the number of provinces, colleges, and examinees opting for on-line enrollment to more than half of the country's total.

The MOE will help more universities to open their service departments to the market and become independent units.

China will also spend more on its elite universities, in a bid to make them bases for cultivating talent. Basic research and high-tech industrialization are still the emphasis of MOE, which plans to start 15 university-based scientific technology parks in 2000.

The outline points out that China's higher education management reform will enter a crucial phase in 2000. According to the State Council, MOE will complete the reform of 200 universities operating under China's ministries.