Higher educational institutions throughout China will recruit 4.65 million new students this year, up 5 percent from last year, sources at the Ministry of Education predicted.

Widening college recruitment is important to train more specialized high-level professionals.

Yet a rational increase in enrolment is crucial to ensuring efficient teaching, according to the ministry.

To provide youngsters with more opportunities to receive further education and help drive economic development through educational means, the country began to expand college enrolment in 1999.

Last year saw a total of 13 million students attending colleges and universities across the country -- up by nearly 90 percent over 1998, when college recruitment was still on a relatively small scale.

Minister of Education Chen Zhili said: "The expansion of college enrolment will be steadily continued in the next few years, as it has been welcomed by students and parents.

"Higher educational institutions have played a vital role in implementing the significant national scientific projects."

Among the 250 senior scientists carrying out the "863 Program" this year, 120 are university professors.

The program is a national high-tech development plan that began in March 1986.

The 120 professors have expanded collaboration with their colleagues by jointly using university labs to experiment with research related to the program.

Last year, colleges and universities across the country updated their curricula to meet the demand for economic development in the 21st century.

A typical example is that 35 universities set up computer software institutes to nurture computer-science specialists, who are in dire need in China, according to Chen.

Basic education also developed rapidly last year. The latest statistics indicate that more than 85 percent of the country's population have undergone education programs at primary and middle-school level.

The remaining 15 percent of the population live mainly in poor regions in central and western China.

These areas aim to implement such programs on a wide scale by 2005, according to the ministry's information office.

Spurred on by the worldwide craze for information-technology development, primary and middle schools in better-developed cities increased the spread of IT education last year.

Among the country's 200 million primary and middle-school students, 50 million are taught about information technology each year, the ministry said.

Starting last year, senior middle schools across the country and junior middle schools in big cities began to teach information technology as a compulsory course.

By 2005, all junior middle schools in the country and primary schools in more developed areas will be required to offer IT courses, according to the ministry.

To fuel economic growth in the country's western regions, the ministry has accelerated assistance to push educational development there.

Peking and Tsinghua universities in the capital and 12 other universities in better-developed regions have started to help 14 of their counterparts in Qinghai Province, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and other western provinces.

Educational development will be improved through the rotation of teaching posts and the donation of teaching equipment.

Last year, 186 poor counties in the western regions set up vocational schools to help give laborers specialized skills.

(China Daily January 09, 2002)