The Chinese people now intend to spend more money for their children, but their opinions on education expenses are varying, official media reported.

Recent surveys have shown that investment in education is the second priority of people living in the 10 biggest cities in China when forming their daily budgets.

Friday's China Daily reported that education expenses accounted for 15 percent of the daily costs of the 4,716 residents in the cities, only behind food expenditure at 38 percent.

But opinions on education expenses were different among the 700 residents in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou surveyed by the China Economic Monitoring Center.

Some 54 percent of these residents said tuition fees for various schools are soaring fast, and nearly 27 percent said they could basically afford the tuition, while the rest said tuition fees were not rising fast.

Among the 700 residents surveyed, 42 percent of them complained that most universities put profits ahead of teaching, 31 percent said profit earnings and teaching are equally important, and the remainder said schools should pay more attention to education quality.

(People's Daily 10/06/2001)