The number of African students studying in China has grown 26-fold, from 2 000 in 2003 to nearly 50 000 in 2015 – surpassing the US and UK, which together host around 40 000 students a year, according to a Quartz Africa report.

Data released by the Unesco Institute for Statistics shows that the Asian nation is the second-most popular destination for African students (France takes the top spot with around 95 000 students). Africans make up 13% of the Chinese student body and, proportionally, more African students are going to China each year than students from anywhere else in the world.

Since 2006, China has set scholarship targets to assist African students coming to the country, and in 2015, it committed to provide 30 000 scholarships to African students by 2018.

Statistics from Tsinghua University in Beijing show that in the 2015/16 academic year, the majority of its 111 African students came from Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Morocco, Eritrea and Cameroon.

11 July 2017
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