The China University of Petroleum's Karamay Campus is expected to start recruiting students for bachelor degrees in 2016 and to establish scholarships to help students in poverty, Karamay Daily reported.

The campus is the first university in Karamay. The China University of Petroleum in Beijing will send experienced faculty as instructors.

The Karamay Campus will give priority to majors relating to petroleum and petrochemicals and aims to ensure that enrolment in the different majors is maximized at the same time.

The enrolment scale and time of opening the majors will depend on the school's faculty condition, practical teaching issues and employment prospects.

The design drawing of the China University of Petroleum's Karamay Campus. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In terms of the postgraduate program, the Karamay Campus will focus on applied professional master degree programs while the Beijing Campus will concentrate on ones with a more theoretical academic approach.

In order to attract excellent students, the Karamay branch has set up scholarships and formulated favorable policies for needy students. The school will also pay great attention to encouraging enrolment from Xinjiang, West China's provinces and provinces with large petrochemical enterprises.

According to a faculty member of the Karamay Campus, the job prospects for petroleum and petrochemical majors are bright in our country due to increasing demand for oil resources. With the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, China has strengthened cooperation with countries along the Silk Road on energy development, which has in turn created enormous demand for skilled workers in the fields of information technology and petrochemical equipment manufacturing.

Students from provinces having petroleum enterprises really aspire to enter petroleum colleges and universities, the faculty member added.

Edited by Peter Nordlinger