International students studying at Xiamen University will be able to win scholarships from this year.

The university in east China's Fujian Province has prepared a start-up fund of 200,000 yuan (US$24,884) for the scholarship, which will be granted to the outstanding overseas students at the university.

Appraisals for the first batch of 16 beneficiaries will begin soon and scholarships will be awarded during the university's 85th anniversary in April.

Except for the scholarship already set up for international students learning Chinese in the Overseas Education School of Xiamen University, the university did not have a special scheme for its other international students.

The new initiative is expected to help attract more foreign students to the university, said Zhan Xinli, director with the Admissions Office of the university.

At present, there are 1,612 international students at Xiamen University. However, only 209 are studying for academic degrees, accounting for less than 20 per cent of the total, much fewer than the university's aim of 1,000 by 2010.

Most of the students are only at the university for short-term (usually less than six months) specialized training.

"The scholarship will help our university upgrade its recognition abroad and expand the source of excellent international students," Zhan said.

The university will also seek more financial support from local government and enterprises from home and abroad in order to enlarge the scholarship in the future, she added.

Statistics from the Ministry of Education indicate that the number of international students studying in mainland universities has been increasing on average by more than 20 per cent annually in the past five years. The figure is expected to reach 120,000 in 2007.

China has accepted students from more than 170 countries and regions, studying in more than 500 mainland universities, since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949.

(China Daily March 7, 2006)