Elite unis to reserve 50,000 places for rural students

China's elite universities have been told by education authorities to reserve vacancies for 50,000 students from disadvantaged rural areas in their 2015 enrollment, as China ramps up efforts to ensure fair access to education across the country.

The 50,000 places will be held for students from 832 poor counties and another 10 provinces with low college entrance rates such as Henan and the Gansu, the Ministry of Education announced on Friday.

The quota is the same as the one applied last year and compares to a quota of 30,000 rural students in 2013.

The rural students must have been enrolled in local high schools for three consecutive years and be up to the quality required by these top colleges, including Tsinghua University, Peking University and Fudan University, according to the ministry.

With the exception of those three most prestigious universities, other colleges will have to ensure no less than 2 percent of their enrolled students are from the disadvantaged rural areas.

The quota announcement came after a meeting of top Chinese leaders on Wednesday at which they promised that every child will receive an equal and high-quality education so as to arrest the spread of poverty through generations. Endi