By the end of 2004, China had 2,236 schools of higher learning,
with over 20 million students; the gross rate of enrollment in
schools of higher learning reached 19 percent. Postgraduate
education is the fastest growing sector, with 24.1 percent more
students recruited and 25.9 percent more researchers than the year
before. This enrollment growth indicates that China has entered the
stage of popular education. The UNESCO world higher education
report of June 2003 pointed out that the student population of
China's schools of higher learning had doubled in a very short
period of time, and was the world's largest.
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Particular attention has been paid to improving systems in recent
reforms. Many industrial multi-versities and specialist colleges
have been established, strengthening some incomplete subjects and
establishing new specialties, e.g., automation, atomic energy,
energy resources, oceanography, nuclear physics, computer science,
polymer chemistry, polymer physics, radiochemistry, physical
chemistry and biophysics. A project for creating 100 world class
universities began in 1993, which has merged 708 schools of higher
learning into 302 universities. Merging schools of higher learning
has produced far-reaching reform of higher education management,
optimizing of educational resources allocation, and further
improving teaching quality and school standards. More than 30
universities have received help from a special national fund to
support their attainment of world elite class.
Between 1999 and 2003, enrollment in higher education increased
from 1.6 million to 3.82 million. In 2004, the total enrollment in
ordinary schools of higher learning was 4.473 million, 651,000 more
than in 2003. Schools of higher learning and research institutes
enrolled 326,000 postgraduate students, 57,000 more than the
previous year.
The contribution to China's economic construction and social
development made by research in the higher education sector is
becoming ever more evident. By strengthening cooperation among
their production, teaching and research, schools of higher learning
are speeding up the process in turning sci-tech research results
into products, giving rise to many new and hi-tech enterprises and
important innovations. Forty-three national university sci-tech
parks have been started or approved, some of which have become
important bases for turning research into products.