(China Daily)

Students sitting for next week's college entrance exams have a better chance of getting admitted in the country's universities compared to last year, education authorities said Tuesday.

The Ministry of Education said that 10.2 million students were registered to sit for the exam this year, 400,000 less than last year.

The average college admission rate is expected to reach 62 percent, 5 percentage points higher than last year, as the ministry considers a plan to increase the rate by 4 percent this year.

The ministry said it is doing its best to ensure the examinations, scheduled for June 7 and June 8, go "smooth and fair".

Media reported earlier that an increasing number of high school students were looking for jobs or education opportunities abroad as a number of college graduates in China were still struggling to secure jobs in the face of the global financial crisis.

Official statistics show some 6.1 million students will graduate into the job market this year, adding to the woes of 1 million graduates of 2007 and 1.5 million of 2008 who still haven't found a job.

Jiang Gang, vice secretary of the Student Department of the Ministry of Education, however, did not agree that the grim job situation was the reason for few students sitting for college entrance exams this year.

"The major reason is the declining population," he said.

"The country's population has been declining after the third birth boom (1985-1990), and so are high school graduates," he said, adding that the number of high school graduates "in 2008 was 8.4 million, in 2009 is 8.34 million and in 2010 will be 8.4 million".

A preferential policy will be implemented to help increase recruitment in the less-developed western part of the country, with 14 advanced provinces like Jiangsu and Shanghai planning to recruit 60,000 students from six other provinces, including Shanxi, Inner Mogolia, Anhui, Henan, Guizhou, and Gansu.