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The government has introduced a "Unified State Examination' test in the fight against corruption. The test will weed out weak teacher, improve the quality of instruction in schools and would ease the financial burden on parents of college students.

An inspection of more than 100,000 schools has found that students have been charged 853 million yuan in illegal fees last year, Education Minister Zhou Ji said yesterday. He said 395 headmasters were among the 2,448 people fired or punished for imposing the fees. About 639 million yuan had been returned to parents after the inspections. Illegal charges for everything from school uniforms to field trips are rampant in many areas, prompting the government to launch a far-reaching clean-up campaign.

Low wages and lax standards have created a vicious cycle: teachers and school administrators demand bribes; parents feel they can't refuse.

Community endowment funds are being experimented in Egypt. They are managed by village committees with the active participation of parents with support from the private sector. They lobby government for better resource allocation.

It is estimated that Russian students and their parents annually spend between $2 billion and $ 5 billion in bribes. And it costs between $ 10 000 and $ 15 000 in bribes to gain acceptance into well-regarded institutions of higher learning in Moscow.

Eighteen parents and seven financial-aid advisers in the Chicago area have been charged with federal student-aid fraud for allegedly obtaining more than $2.6-million in funds by purposefully underreporting their income on financial-aid applications. Two of the aid advisers worked at colleges.