Getting into overseas students' good books

The country is planning to overhaul the university system to attract larger numbers of foreign applicants, reports Zhao Xinying.

In 2014, more than 377,000 students from 203 countries studied in China, according to the Ministry of Education. The Institute of International Education calculated the number of foreign students as 356,499, and ranked the country as the third-largest host of international students after the United States and the United Kingdom.

Whatever the true number, in the eyes of Fang Jun, deputy director of the Ministry of Education's Department of International Cooperation and Exchange, the statistics don't tell the whole picture. Although the numbers proclaim China as the world's third most-popular location for students from overseas, factors such as the middling quality of the education provided and the sources and structure of the international student group need urgent review and updating, he said.