BEIJING: China's three-day national post-graduate examination started Saturday, attracting 1.4 million registered applicants in total, a record high number since 2001 and a 13 percent increase over 2009.

Students sit for the post-graduate entrance examination at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics on January 9, 2010. [Xinhua]

The candidates would compete for 465,000 seats, which means around one in every three examinees would succeed.

"The job market was just too tough this year," he said.

A recent poll on college students due to graduate in 2010, the main force of post-graduate exam sitters, showed that around nine percent of them planned to pursue further studies in China after graduation and 34 percent believed further studies would bring a brighter career future.

Statistics released by the Ministry of Education (MOE) showed there would be more than 6.3 million students graduating from universities nationwide this year.

China is enlarging enrollment of students pursuing post-graduate studies on "job-oriented disciplines," which focus on helping students acquire high-level skills for a certain profession.

China has developed "job-oriented disciplines" at a master-program level since 1991, currently offering 19 such disciplines, including law, social work and translation.

The number of Chinese applying to sit the exam soared from 1999 to 2007 with an average annual increase rate of 17 percent. The figure only slightly dropped in 2008, which was mainly attributed to the enthusiastic job market that year.

Experts believe the come back of the fever for this exam reflected a sluggish job market in the global economic downturn.

The MOE has also announced stricter penalty over those caught cheating in this year's exam, such as putting the stain into both their credit and personnel records for reference to future employers.

Cheaters would also be banned from taking the exam next year.