(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-08-20 10:58

Chinese presidents of universities and colleges are younger and more likely to change jobs, compared with their American counterparts, according to a study by the "Research Group of Study on the Quality of University Presidents in China".

Chinese university presidents are 52 years old on average, six years younger than their American counterparts, while they stay in office for an average of 4.1 years, compared with 6.6 years in office for American college heads.

Only 4.5 percent of Chinese university presidents are women, while 21.1 percent of their American counterparts are female.

The investigators have found most Chinese universities and colleges have opened their own websites, as the Internet has been widely used by these higher learning institutions as a major means of communication.

This is the first such survey by Chinese, while the American Council on Education (ACE) carried out five such investigations in 1986, 1990, 1995, 1998 and 2001, respectively.

The survey included information of 1,500 Chinese universities and colleges and used statistical results of a similar survey conducted by the ACE.