Eighteen of China's top universities are expanding the recruitment efforts to Europe in search of more foreign students to give their campuses a little added diversity.
The 18 schools, including five of Shanghai's top universities, will host exhibitions in Germany and France this month in an attempt to recruit students for undergraduate and graduate programs.
The exhibition will be held in Berlin on Friday and Saturday and in Paris next Friday.
"We believe Europe is a potential market," said Lin Jing with the government-run Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange, which is organizing the events.
Lin said there are currently more foreign students in China from Germany and France than any other European countries.
The center began organizing annual education expos in 1999, starting with Japan and South Korea, before heading off to Thailand last year.
"Diversity of students is one of the criteria to measure a top university and we expect the exhibition will help us attract more outstanding foreign students," said Wang Zhigang with the Jiao Tong University.
Jiao Tong will represent Shanghai at the exhibitions, along with Fudan University, East China Normal University, Shanghai International Studies University and Tongji University.
Not only are more overseas students studying in China, but they also are applying to a growing number of majors, instead of just learning the language as most did in the past.
For instance, at Jiao Tong University, the number of overseas students reached some 1,600 this year, more than double the number studying there in 2000. About 700 of them were studying Chinese language with the rest majoring in business administration, computers, engineering and law.
"I want to learn about the development of Chinese economics while learning the language," said Hirose Ryuudai, a Japanese student studying economics in the city.
Jiao Tong University has set up an annual financial-aid fund of 1.5 million yuan for foreign graduate students and Fudan plans to set a similar fund soon.
Last year, some 9,000 overseas undergraduates and graduates studied in the city, 1.5 times more than in 2,000.
Japan was the top source of students with 2,300 in the city, followed by South Korea at 2,000 and the United States at 300. There were 190 students from France and 150 from Germany.
(eastday.com November 20, 2002)
