BEIJING, May 23 -- During the three decades following the resumption of China's College Entrance Examination in 1977, altogether 36 million students have been admitted into universities, colleges, and vocational and technical schools, with the enrollment rate lifted from 4.7 percent in 1977 to 56.85 percent in 2006, according to statistics from the Ministry of Education.

In 1999 China started a massive college enrollment expansion. In the year before ordinary colleges nationwide enrolled 1.08 million students, but by 2002 the planned enrollment scale had reached 2.75 million, rising 154.6 percent. This year, the planned number is 5.7 million, with the number of candidates for the first time surpassing 10 million.

1997 marked the year of fiercest competition in China's history of college entrance exams, with one student picked from more than a score. The ratio began to drop gradually in the early 1980s, from 6:1 to 3.5:1 in the early 1990s, until today's 2:1.

(Source: People's Daily Online)