BEIJING - China's Ministry of Education has told the country's universities to prevent corruption in their student admission procedures.

The opinions of schools and teachers should be respected, but efforts to strengthen supervision and restrict the abuse of power in the academic arena are also needed to prevent possible corruption, the ministry said in a Friday circular on this year's student recruitment process for doctorate programs.

Violations in this regard should be seriously punished, the circular said.

It also called for enhanced information transparency and public supervision in these procedures.

Moreover, universities were told to improve the qualification process for selecting eligible postgraduate mentors and promoting training for the mentors.

For many universities in China, this year's exam, interview and selection procedures for doctorate studies are scheduled to start from this month.