He was speaking in his capacity as chairman of the Education Ministry's legal team. The rector post is equivalent to the post of university president.

Surapol said his team had already resolved that the autonomous university's presidents and vice presidents should be subjected to the asset-declaration requirement.

"The requirement will be a part of a bill to promote autonomous universities' operations," Surapol said, adding that this bill would also make it mandatory that all autonomous universities ensure equality in its student admission system.

According to Surapol, this bill will also demand that autonomous universities earmark a proportion of tuition fees as scholarships for cash-strapped students.

"It can be three per cent, five per cent or 10 per cent of the tuition fees," he said.

Surapol said at Thammasat University, 10 per cent of the tuition fees collected was allocated as scholarships. "If there's money left, we also use this portion of money as funds for students from poor families," he said.

Asked whether the government could fix the tuition fees in the bill, Surapol said, "No. Tuition fees should be calculated based on each institute's teaching arrangements. The location of the institute will also affect tuition cost".

However, Surapol assured that representatives of the Education Ministry or Office of the Higher Education Commission (Ohec) would sit on the council of each university and these representatives would be able to report any unfair practice to the education minister.

Surapol said Education Minister Wijit Srisa-arn had informed Ohec that the bills to turn Chulalongkorn University, Mahidol University, King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok, Burapha University and Thaksin University should also include key contents from the bill to promote autonomous university operations.

"We believe that this will reduce opposition against the move to turn state universities into autonomous institutes," he said.