Students from Hong Kong and Macao studying at mainland Chinese universities will pay the same tuition fees as their mainland peers, starting this September.

They will also become the beneficiaries of a newly launched scholarship fund, the Ministry of Education announced yesterday at a Beijing press conference.

Students from these two special administrative regions will be charged the same tuition and boarding fees as their mainland classmates, and will live in the same dorms, said ministry spokesman Wang Xuming.

Colleges that enroll Hong Kong and Macao students will get special subsidies of about 8,000 yuan (US$918) per student per year from the central government to cover extra educational costs.

The average annual tuition for Hong Kong and Macao undergraduates studying on the mainland are about US$1,000 to 1,500 currently, while their mainland classmates pay the equivalent of US$367.

Lo Kin-chung, a student who was unable to enter a Hong Kong university because of his poor marks in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination in 2003, warmly supports the policy.

He said he wanted to study economics or journalism at Guangzhou's Jinan University, and "the reduction of tuition is an attractive factor."

Kwok Ming-wa, vice-president of the Beijing-Hong Kong Academic Exchange Centre, predicts that more students will opt to study on the mainland.

The centre, which helps students apply for Peking and Tsinghua universities, expects more than 300 to do so this year.

Taiwan students were offered the same favorable policies last September, and they have benefited from a scholarship fund that distributes 7 million yuan (US$864,000) each year.

The ministry did not disclose the specific amount of the new scholarship for Hong Kong and Macao students.

The ministry also announced yesterday that students at rural primary and junior middle schools in 16 provinces and autonomous regions in western China would be exempt from paying tuition about 200 yuan (US$25) a year beginning this spring semester.

Wang Xuming said the policy will be permanent and will extend to all of China's rural areas next year.

(China Daily February 28, 2006)