SHANGHAI, July 23 -- ABOUT 20,000 ethnic-minority students are attending preparatory courses in Mandarin in more than 100 Chinese universities, according to the State Ethnic Affairs Commission.

Ethnic-minority students can choose one-year or two-year preparatory courses where they can raise their level of Chinese before entering the first year of university.

The central government has adopted several policies to help ethnic-minority students, such as easier access to higher education, the SEAC said.

Wurihan, a 26-year-old woman of Mongolian ethnic origin, had 20 marks added to her college entrance exam results when she took the exam eight years ago, because the university course she had applied for was taught in Mandarin.

"The competition is fierce so the added marks were a huge relief," she said.

Wurihan said she could use Mandarin at a high level but still felt nervous when competing with Han students because Mandarin was her second language.

The SEAC said ethnic colleges attached to the commission had created special university courses to help train talented students from 22 ethnic minorities, each with a population of below 100,000.

They include the Ewenki, Oroqen, Daur, Maonan, Sala, Bulang and Tajik.

China has 55 ethnic minorities who account for only 8.4 percent of the total population.

Most of the ethnic groups live in impoverished western regions and border areas in 10 provinces or autonomous regions such as the southwestern Yunnan and Guizhou, the northwestern Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia in the north.