The Study in Guangxi Education Exhibition in Colombo is underway in Colombo, drawing a steady stream of Sri Lankan students wanting to study in China.

In the first-ever exhibition of their facilities, 25 higher education institutions from Guangxi, China offered a wide variety of courses in the liberal arts, management, technology, science, medicine, Chinese language, tourism and teaching.

The main reason for Sri Lankan students flocking to the exhibition is the lack of facilities in the island, the Additional Secretary of Ministry of Higher Education and Cultural Affairs, Madhawa Dewasurendra said.

There is a high demand for medicine, engineering, technology, IT and management, Dewasurendra said.

"And there are scholarships too," Liu Dong, Director of the Cultural Section in the Chinese Embassy in Colombo said, adding that each year, the Chinese government offers Sri Lankans 80 scholarships in addition to many other full or partial scholarships offered by the Confucius Institute and provincial governments.

Qin Ping, Deputy Party Secretary of the Working Committee of Higher Education Institutions of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said that over the past five years, the number of international students in Guangxi has grown at an annual rate of 20 percent.

The number of Sri Lankan students going to Guangxi Province has increased from 35 in 2012 to 100 now.

In 2017, more than 14,000 international students from 118 countries studied in Guangxi, among which more than 12,000 students were from Asian countries, Qin pointed out. (Xinhua)