Number of high-level overseas returnees increasing

According to the Ministry of Education, the number of Chinese studying abroad exceeded 600,000 for the first time in 2017, up nearly 12 percent annually. The number of returned students increased by 11 percent compared to the previous year, reaching 480,000. Among them, the number of students with a master’s or doctorate degree as well as postdoctoral personnel reached 227,400, with a year-on-year increase of nearly 15 percent.

Xiong Qingnian, director of the Research Institute for Higher Education at Fudan University, said that on one hand, the increasing number of students abroad shows people’s higher enthusiasm for education investment. Meanwhile, because of the sustained impact of the economic crisis, all countries in the world have been expanding the enrollment scale of foreign students. On the other hand, the obvious return trend of high-level overseas students indicates the increasing demand for talent from the building of “double first-class universities” (“world-class university” and “first-class discipline”) in China as well as economic development. In addition, the “Belt and Road” construction has also accelerated the return of high-level talent, Xiong said.

(edited by SHAO YIJIA)