Yu Minhong, dubbed the godfather of overseas studies, plans to buy one or two colleges that will further expand his educational empire.

Yu, president of the Beijing-based New Oriental School (NOS), a popular English training school in China, became the country's richest teacher thanks to NOS's 110-million-U.S.-dollar IPO in New York on Sept. 6.

Yu says the funds will also be used to pay down the school's previous debts.

NOS now has a network of 25 schools, and more than 110 learning centers. It employs some 1,700 teachers in 24 cities in China.

"NOS will continue to focus on English training only. The purchase (of the colleges) would, hopefully, allow us to issue educational certificates to our students in the future," Yu said.

The NOS's website says it has had over three million enrollments including 800,000 in 2005 alone. It trains Chinese students who want to go broad by preparing them for English examinations such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).

The school was sued in 2001 by U.S.-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) for publishing and selling ETS's test questions for non- English-speaking students.

The Higher People's Court of Beijing ordered in 2005, NOS pay 450,000 U.S. dollars to ETS in compensation.

Editor: Donald