An official from Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE) on Friday said the current restriction on marriage and childbearing for college and postgraduate students will be lifted.

Addressing a forum on the subject, held by the Center for Women's Law and Legal Services of prestigious Peking University, Fan Yi, an official with the student affairs department from the MOE, acknowledged that the draft regulation on college student management will no longer have specified articles prohibiting college students and graduate students getting marriage and having children while in school.

The MOE began to draft a new regulation on college student management as early as in 1996. Fan did not disclose when the draft regulation will be officially passed.

The fifty-year-old ban has compelled students, contemplating marriage or who gotten pregnant, to make painful choices -- give up study or delay marriage; give up study or have an abortion.

According to a survey conducted by the Center for Women's Law and Legal Services of Peking University, 33.3 percent of 951 undergraduates from 16 universities oppose the prohibition of marriage while 17.7 percent support it and others are non-committal. Meanwhile, 57 percent of 467 surveyed graduates from 10 universities are against the prohibition of childbearing while 12 percent are for it and others are non-committal.

(Xinhua News Agency January 22, 2005)