The report, titled "building a population power into a human resources one", was released recently by the Ministry of Education. China has a population of about 1.3 billion.

According to the report, China's first research document on education and human resources, the country will need 1.16 million teachers for senior high schools by 2005 provided 60 percent of youngsters have access to senior high school education as planned and the ratio of students to teachers is 18:1.

China's colleges and universities, meanwhile, will be short of 110,000 teachers by then if the ratio is 15:1.

China's population at senior high school age is expected to peak in 2004 at 75.87 million, and the number of young people of college education age will peak in 2008 at 124 million.

Despite China's big efforts to expand college education in recent years, less than half of the youths have an opportunity of receiving college education due to limited educational resources.

(China Daily February 19, 2003)