By IANS,
Beijing : As part of an initiative to ensure that deserving students from rural areas also have access to higher education, China’s top business school will select such candidates through an independent programme.
With a focus on admitting more students from rural areas in its undergraduate programme, the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University will start independent admission, the China Daily reported.
The school will enroll 30 to 50 students through its newly-launched independent admission programme in 2012.
“Among them we hope to have 30 percent from rural areas, making 15 to 20 percent of the school total,” said Gong Liutang, associate dean of the school.
Candidates selected from those attending the university’s independent admission programme – based on written examination and comprehension test scores – would be called for interview. One out of six will get admission to the school, known for drawing the country’s best students.
“This is the first time that a school is involved in the independent recruitment programme,” said Qin Chunhua, chief of the university admission office.
Rural students comprise less than 10 percent of the total numbers in the school at the moment.
In 2003, China’s ministry of education had started trial programmes of independent recruitment at some of the universities.
Referring to the drive to admit more students from rural areas, Cai Hongbin, dean of Guanghua School of Management, said: “We hope this contributes to education equity.”
“The country’s education resources tend to be over centralised. Through this act, we hope to draw public attention to education equity.”
While the national average of rural population in universities was about 50 percent, when it came to leading universities, it was less than 20 percent, said Xiong Bingqi, vice-chief of the 21st Century Education Research Institute.
“This means the rural population now has growing chances to receive higher education, but the numbers are still limited in the best schools,” he said.