Forty years of academic excellence

In 1974, Tsung-dao Lee, a Chinese-American physicist who won the Nobel Prize when he was just 30 years of age, suggested that China should offer university places to talented individuals at an early age.

However, it wasn't until 1977 - when the gaokao, the national university entrance exam, was revived after being suspended for 10 years - that the authorities began to seriously consider the suggestion.

In the same year, a professor from Jiangxi province wrote to Fang Yi, a vice-premier and president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to recommend that a talented 13-year-old boy named Ning Bo should be given a university education.