Students promised 1m yuan for admission into Peking, Tsinghua universities

(ECNS) – Enping, a city in Guangdong province, will grant a million yuan and an apartment to each of its students who get admitted to Peking University or Tsinghua University, China's top two higher education institutions.

Feng Huoling, president of the Association of Enping Fellows in Macao, set up the scholarship in his hometown to retain talent and boost the city's education.

With total funding of 30 million yuan ($5 million), the scholarship will be used to reward students who get into the two universities between 2015 and 2021, as well as their teachers.

If only one student meets the criteria in a single year, he or she will be rewarded with one million yuan ($16 million), while teachers from their middle schools and high schools will also get from 600,000 ($100,000) to 1.6 million yuan ($259,000).

Students must take the college entrance exam (Gaokao) in Enping, have Enping residency for at least five years, and have studied at Enping schools for three years or more.

According to a 2011 story by the Southern Metropolis Daily, Enping has suffered from low education input and poor teaching quality. Only one student was admitted to Peking University in the past decade, and more than 30 percent of top-scoring students chose to pursue their high school studies outside of Enping.

The Enping government also has set up a special fund for schools that perform well on the Gaokao.