Overseas study no longer only for the elite

Seventy years ago, when the People's Republic of China was founded, the picture for students going abroad was very different.

In September 1950, China sent 25 college graduates to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria. They were the first batch of overseas students since the founding of New China, according to the book 60 Years of Overseas Study by Miao Danguo, a retired official at the Ministry of Education's Department of International Cooperation and Exchanges. However, the students, who were all government-funded and learning engineering skills, only visited communist bloc countries.

By 1965, China had sent 10,689 students to 29 countries, with about 80 percent going to the Soviet Union, the book said.

During most of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), China suspended its overseas study program, so no students went abroad to study from 1966 to 1972, it said.

The program was restarted in 1973, when seven students were sent to Japan to learn the language. From 1973 to 1978, when China began implementing the Reform and Opening-up Policy, about 2,000 students were sent abroad, mainly to study foreign languages, according to the book.

In June 1978, Deng Xiaoping announced that China would increase the number of students it sent abroad. "Rather than just sending a handful of students, we should send thousands of them," he said.

In December 1978, a group of 52 science and technology experts was chosen to become the first citizens of the PRC to study in the US.

Deng's strategy proved successful. After two or three years as visiting scholars at top institutions in the US, most of the intellectuals returned to help rebuild the country.