[photopress:first_students.jpg,full,alignright]An official with the Ministry of Education (MOE) said in Beijing that more than one million Chinese have studied abroad since the late 1970s.
This has been an increasing trend for the number of students since, as Shao Wei, an MOE official, said those who have pursued overseas study since 2000 accounted for more than 70% of the total number of students who went to school abroad in the last two decades.
In 2005, 118,500 Chinese studied abroad, 106,500 at their own expenses. The Chinese government has also funded more people to study overseas.
More than 100,000 Chinese have studied abroad annually since 2002.
This has been going on quite a while. Our illustration dates from August 11, 1872 when 30 students from the Guang Fangyan Guan school went to the United States to study under the auspices of the Imperial Qing Court to America. The program was run by Rong Hong, better known as Yung Wing (1828-1912), the first Chinese to graduate from an American university — Yale in 1854.
Source: Xinhua
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