About 2.9 million Chinese will take the entrance exam for postgraduate studies from Dec. 22 to 24, registering a record high, China Youth Daily reported.

The exam will see 520,000 more candidates than it did last year, according to a report issued by online Chinese education services platform eol.cn.

(Photo: VCG)

The report showed that Henan, Jiangxi and Hebei provinces saw the highest growth in the number of examinees that respectively stood at 25.6, 24.8 and 22.1 percent. In addition, non-fresh graduates accounted for nearly half of total examinees.

1978 marked the start of China's reform and opening up, and also the first year of the country's resumption of postgraduate education. The country recruited only 10,708 postgraduate students 40 years ago, and the figure had expanded about 74 times to 806,103 by 2017.

The enrollment of postgraduate and doctoral students has kept an annual growth of around 4 percent since 2007. However, the number of postgraduates was up by 22 percent in 2017, and the number of doctoral students by 8.5 percent, the report said.

Education, management, and engineering are the top three majors in terms of enrollment expansion. They respectively recruited 54,000, 250,000 and 116,000 students in 2017, up by 70, 27 and 61 percent.

The report pointed out that 36 percent of the candidates registered for the entrance exam due to the severe employment situation and their demand to improve employment competitiveness. 21 percent of the candidates hoped to further improve academic ability, while 17 percent wanted to revitalize their education background.

"Many say that to avoid working is the major reason for college students to apply for postgraduate degree, but I think the true reason is that we want better jobs," said Lu Ying, a student from a university in Hebei province. "I don't like my current job, so I want to upgrade my education background and find a new one," she added.

(Compiled by Sun Wenyu)