More Chinese overseas students eye work opportunities back home

More and more Chinese students are choosing to seek employment back home following overseas study, according to a report released Wednesday by the Education Ministry.

A total of 353,500 overseas graduates returned home in 2013, while nearly 410,000 went abroad to study, said director of the ministry's service center for overseas study Sun Jianming.

Since oversees study was opened up in 1978, 3.05 million Chinese citizens have taken advantage of the initiative. By the end of 2013, 1.44 million had brought their skills back to China.

The United States remained the top destination of choice for Chinese overseas-students for master and doctoral degrees last year. The United Kingdom welcomed the majority of high school and undergraduate Chinese students, the report said.

Nearly 50 percent of overseas Chinese students chose business management or economics majors, which could intensify competition back home, the report said.

Over 60 percent of graduates were eyeing employment opportunities in the first-tier cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, said the deputy director of the service center, Che Weiming.

He said some students demonstrated "blind optimism" when selecting majors and careers, adding that the student's foreign education did not translate into any significant wage advantage.

Both Sun and Che agreed that foreign educated students should be selective when choosing a career path and should have a genuine interest in the subject they were pursuing. They both also recommended that returning citizens could establish start-ups as some local governments provided perks, including tax exemption.