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| Students who will take part in this year's national college entrance examination and their parents look at exam information at High School Attached to Northwest Normal University in Lanzhou, capital of northwest China's Gansu Province, on June 6, 2010. Examinees and their parents went to their exam posts to get familiar with the environment on Sunday. China's national college entrance examination will be held on Monday, with more than 9.57 million examinees competing for 6.57 million places at nationwide universities and colleges. (Xinhua/Nie Jianjiang) |
by Xinhua writer Tian Ying
BEIJING, June 6 (Xinhua) -- In the run-up to this year's national college entrance exam, or gaokao, which falls on June 7-8, Shanghai-based Fudan University promised to offer 50,000 yuan (more than 7,000 U.S. dollars) to applicants who come top 5 in their provinces.
Top universities are jostling with each other to lure the nation's best brains as competition between all higher learning institutions has intensified due to a decreasing candidate number.
This year, a total of 9.57 million candidates, mostly high school students, have registered for gaokao, 650,000 less than last year, the second straight year of decrease.
Jiang Gang, vice director of the Department of College Student Affairs of the Education Ministry, said the decline is mainly due to the shrinking number of high school students.
Wang Guangzhou, a research fellow specialized in Demography with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said it runs parallel with China's decreasing birth rate as a result of the one-child policy.
Generally, students taking this year's entrance exam attended primary school 12 years ago. According to education ministry statistics, primary school enrolment has decreased since 1996. In 2008 the enrolment was one third less than the 1995 peak.
"That means the number of college candidates will continue shrinking for the foreseeable future," said Zhao Ming, chief of the admission office of Nanjing University.
