Education authority seeks lessons in attracting more foreign students

Although the number of foreign students studying on the Chinese mainland has increased steadily in the past eight years, it still falls far behind the number of Chinese students going abroad, a report released on Tuesday said.

According to the Annual Report on the Development of Chinese Students Studying Abroad 2013, there were 1.14 million Chinese studying overseas last year. That compares with only 328,000 foreign students in China.

Published by the Center for China and Globalization, the report cites a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development done earlier this year showing that China lags behind 10 developed economies in terms of the number of international students.