Sixty Chinese universities and colleges received yellow cards from the Ministry of Education (MOE) , which told them to restrict enrollment and increase spending on construction, Ji Ping, a senior official with MOE told reporters at a press conference here Wednesday.

The names of the 60 schools, along with 1,778 schools qualified to give higher education, have been published in the China Education News and the MOE's official website. "Any other Chinese school excluded in the list were unqualified schools to give higher education," Ji said.

Since late 1980s, China began issuing red and yellow cards to underqualified schools. In 1991, a total of 144 universities and colleges have received red or yellow cards, 30 of which were closed.

Over the past 10 years, Ji said, higher education in China was promoted with the on-campus students jumping to 13.33 million in 2004, six times of 1991. In the meantime, quality of China's higher education was also improved despite the evaluation standard was leveled up twice. Number of schools getting yellow cards remained by an average of 20 to 30 every year.

Ji stressed that in the past, the evaluation standard on Chinese universities include such factors as teaching staff, infrastructure, teaching facilities and library. The evaluation this year put more focus on the teachers' academic degrees. As a result, the number of unqualified schools rose to 60.

The red card/yellow card evaluation mechanism, experts say, is conducive to boosting the reform of the universities. "It also comply with the current situation in China that the people's demand for education is great yet the education is still making unbalanced progress," Ji said.

According to Ji's estimation, ever since the mechanism was established, hundreds of billions of yuan have been put into the improvement of school facilities, illegal schools have been curbed and government service lauded.

Minister of Education Zhou Ji has said that China's education had developed rapidly in both compulsory and higher education. In 2000, China extended its nine-year compulsory education nationwide, and in 1999, enrollment rate of higher education reached 19 percent.

"However," Ji Ping said, "the higher education resources in China should be further optimized, and we should continue to strengthen the government administration."

The list of qualified universities was always the most important reference for Chinese students, who apply for universities before taking college entrance exams in June. This year, the expected list came at the end of April, one month ahead of last year. There will be 8 million people taking college entrance exams, 1 million more than last year.

"We hope the timely and transparent information will better help the students," Ji said.