Record 20,100 Chinese students return home in 2003

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, February 16, 2004

Record 20,100 Chinese students return home in 2003

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The number of China's returned students hit 20,100 in 2003, a record high in a year since 1978 when China started to exchange students with foreign countries, sources at the Ministry of Education (MOE) said Monday.

Cao Guoxing, director of the MOE International Department, said there was a total of 117,300 Chinese students going abroad for study in 2003, including 8,146 dispatched by the government and enterprises.

The number of the students last year decreased by 6.3 percent compared to 2002, due to the effects of SARS incident. However, number of the returned students from abroad increased 12.3 percent over the previous year.

In addition, the MOE has strengthened its supervision over intermediate organizations, sending out 13 warnings to Chinese students against illicit foreign schools and intermediary companies.

Cao said over the past 25 years, China has done a good job of selecting, dispatching, managing and serving students and scholars studying abroad. So far, China has set up 55 educational sections in Chinese diplomatic missions to 38 countries, over 2,000 sodalities for China's overseas students, and more than 300 academic organizations for Chinese students and visiting scholars abroad.

In recent years, a number of foundations have been established to support more than 20,000 excellent academic people to return to and work for their homeland. By the end of 2003, China had launched 21 zones specially for returned students to run businesses, with establishment of 5,000 companies with a total production value of 30 billion yuan (about 3.65 billion US dollars).

Last year, the MOE test-launched a scholarship fund for self-supported students in the United States, Japan, Britain, France and Germany, with 100 rewards to the excellent students of them each year.

Statistics show that from 1978 to 2003 China's exchange academic personnel totaled 700,200, with 172,800 returned.

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