Covering an area of 139,600 square kilometers, with a population of 63.69 million, Anhui Province lies in the eastern part of China. It abounds in natural and cultural resources and human talents.

 

Anhui’s education has developed rapidly since China began to practice policies of opening to the world and economic reform. In 1998, the province realized the goal of meeting state standards for making nine-year compulsory education basically universal and basically eliminating illiteracy among young and middle-aged people, which ranks Anhui foremost among all the provinces in China. In 2004, the enrollment rate for primary school children and junior high school children of schooling age was respectively 99.54 per cent and 97.39 per cent. 100 per cent of primary school pupils and 55.64 per cent of middle school students could continue their further study. The student population of secondary vocational and technological schools accounts for 520,000. The recruitment rate of senior high school graduates is 58.93 per cent. There are altogether 82 institutions of higher learning in the province including 80 provincial ones, with a student population of about 500,000. A rough estimation on the proportion of matriculation of higher education has reached 15.5 per cent. An education system with Anhui characteristics, closely related with the social and economic development has come into being.