China’s academic ranking benefits Pakistani students

BEIJING: Chinese Universities further upgraded their overall learning system to provide best possible education to students from Pakistan and other regional countries.

In the ranking of more than 350 Asian universities, China claims almost one fifth of the entries. This is result of continuous efforts on the Chinese side bringing its educational level at par with international standard, it was officially stated here on Wednesday. With almost 20,000 students from Pakistan studying in China last year, the South Asian country has risen from the ninth-largest source of China's international students to the fourth.

The growing ranking encourages students from Pakistan and other regional countries for pursuing their higher studies in China. According to statistics released by the Chinese Ministry of Education, more than 200,000 students from 64 countries along the Belt and Road Initiative were studying in China last year, up 13.6 per cent from 2015.

For the first time in the list's six-year history, Tsinghua University is China's top-ranked institution, following across-the-board improvements on its teaching, research, citation impact, international outlook and knowledge transfer.

It comes second in the overall rankings, behind the National University of Singapore. Peking University drops one place to third. The number of students studying in China from countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road has increased greatly under a series of preferential policies, education officials said.

"The growth rate exceeds that of China's international students as a whole," said Xu Tao, director of the ministry's Department of International Cooperation and Exchange, "as more than 440,000 students from 205 countries and regions were studying in China last year, a year-on-year rise of 11.4 percent.