China will establish branches of the Communist Youth League in all its private colleges, Zhao Yong,an official with the country's largest youth organization, said Wednesday.

By the end of last year, 90 percent of private colleges and universities in the country had set up branches of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC), a 23.3 percent increase from 1999.

China began to allow private capital to invest in higher education in the 1980s and the sector saw rapid development in thelast decade.

While most high school graduates are CYLC members, there were no branches of the youth organization on the campuses of private colleges for a long period, said Zhao, secretary of the Secretariat of the CYLC central committee.

He said many private colleges and universities had full-time staff in charge of CYLC activities, while branches in colleges anduniversities were under the management of local Communist League committees.

A 5-day national congress of CYLC started Tuesday in Beijing.

(Xinhua News Agency July 24, 2003)