Sharp fall in local students taking college entrance exam

Demographics, vocational schools and the lure of overseas study mean 20,000 fewer Beijing students will sit the university entrance test this year compared with last year.

Numbers released by the Beijing education examinations authority show 81,000 senior middle school students have registered to take the exam that they must pass to go on to university.

The silver lining in the dwindling number is 80 percent of those trying to get to university in 2010, some 65,000 students, will make it.