Leading universities in China vow to increase admission quotas for students from rural areas, as well as those from central and western China, amid efforts to support education in less-developed regions.
For Tsinghua University to accept more rural, central and western students would be an important step in the right direction for enrollment, Liu Zhen, the director of Tsinghua's admission office, was quoted as saying by the China Youth Daily on Monday.
The report comes as Chinese authorities have vowed to support education in less-developed regions in recent years.
Tsinghua University has already increased enrollment in provinces including Shaanxi, Sichuan provinces and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region via special programs that accepted 348 students from the regions in 2016, accounting for nearly 10 percent of overall admissions.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) and National Development and Reform Commission released a joint announcement on May 2016, which stipulates that a total of 210,000 students be included in the enrollment scheme among 10 provinces and regions in central and western China.
Universities from 14 provinces and cities are involved in the scheme. The plan aims at balancing the admission among regions, narrowing the regional gap and improving higher education.
The lowest college admission rate among 31 provinces in China in 2007 was 39 percent, a 40 percent gap compared to the highest, data by the MOE shows without naming which provinces.
