A large TV screen nearby featured Chinese people, formerly students in Britain, who are now leaders in China.

This was advertisement enough for Chinese students aspiring to go over-seas at the exhibition - who included primary and secondary school students.

As the economy improves and more Chinese people choose to study abroad, increasing numbers of universities, colleges and even middle schools from foreign countries have been coming to China to recruit Chinese students.

This month Shanghai has witnessed its busiest schedule ever of foreign education exhibitions.

The British education exhibition covered the entire ground floor of the Shanghai International Convention Centre (SICC), and involved more than 100 British universities, colleges and schools. Several seminars were held and on the first day more than 8,000 visited the exhibition.

The first ever Irish education exhibition in China was held at the same time on a different floor of SICC.

On March 11 and 12, a large education exhibition made up of universities and schools from more than 20 countries was held in the Everbright Exhibition Centre. To Shanghai people, many of the stands were "familiar faces." There were, however, some new faces from some European countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark.

And last Friday and Saturday at the Huating Hotel, the US education exhibition, contributed to by more than 30 universities, also attracted many local students and their parents.

Nothing new

It is nothing new for young people and children from China to be sent abroad for study. China's first student to study abroad was Rong Hong, a native of South China's Guangdong Province. Rong, with the help of an American missionary, went to Yale University in 1847.

After graduation, Rong returned home and made great contributions to the country's systems, especially its educational system.

In 1872, the Imperial Court of the Qing Dynasty (AD 1644-1911) sent 30 Chinese boys, recruited in Guangdong and Shanghai, to the United States, via Shanghai, with Rong to escort them.

From then on, the Qing government sent 30 boys to American schools every year. And later more and more Chinese went abroad to study in the US, Europe and Japan. They were both government financed and self financed.

During the early years of the Republic of China, however, very few children had the opportunity to go to foreign countries although some adults still went to universities abroad.

As the country began to implement the opening-up policy in 1979, more and more Chinese students went to pursue studies overseas.

And in recent years, increasing numbers of young people have opted to go abroad. In Guangdong Province, the youngest overseas student is just five years old.

State policy

In definite terms, an announcement of the Education Ministry in late 1999 opposed the trend of young children being sent abroad to study.

However, Chinese individuals are at liberty to go abroad.

Jiang Haishan, director of the International Co-operation Department of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission said: "We hope more and more Chinese students go abroad to study and later return home to devote themselves to the development of the country."

Zhang Weijiang, director of the Municipal Education Commission keeps a close eye on the numbers of Shanghai adult students who go abroad for postgraduate level studies.

He wouldn't reveal how many primary and secondary school students in Shanghai go to schools abroad, however, saying simply: "More and more middle school students apply to go abroad to study.

"The educational exchanges between Shanghai and the rest of the world should be a two-way channel," Zhang added, referring to the fact that increasing numbers of foreign students are coming to study in Shanghai.

Dishonest agencies

One problem in recent years has been the emergence of dishonest overseas studies agencies in Shanghai and many other cities in the country.

Many students and their families have been cheated out of large sums of money by these intermediaries which claim to be able to help place students with educational establishments abroad.

Early this year, the city closed 90 of these agencies, allowing about 14 "upright, standardized" agencies to continue business.

In the early 1980s when China was newly opened up to the outside world and some Western countries were eager to recruit Chinese students to "spread seeds of freedom and liberal thoughts," it was much easier for a Chinese student to get a scholarship from a foreign university.

But there is no "free lunch" any more. Today it is increasingly difficult for a Chinese student to get a scholarship in a foreign university. And many foreign countries now see education as an important industry for earning money from overseas students.

No country now grant loans or scholarships to foreign middle school students. Annual expenditure on tuition and accommodation for a secondary school student amounts to 100,000 yuan ($12,000), about 10 times the salary an ordinary worker in Shanghai earns in a whole year.

New wave

Why are foreign universities so keen to recruit Chinese students and Chinese students so eager to go abroad? The answer is that these foreign countries want to earn money from the Chinese students, spread their culture and foster positive links with Chinese students, the potential leaders of the China of the future, analysts said.

As for the Chinese students, they want to receive an overseas education which they believe will help them in pursuit of a good job.

It is a noteworthy fact that a large number of returned Chinese students have become State leaders, artists, scholars and successful business people.

Liu Jun is a rich businessman and his 12-year-old son, a fifth grader, studies at Shanghai World Foreign Languages Primary School in Xuhui District. Liu said his son's English is as good as a junior high school graduate and he is thinking of sending him abroad to receive secondary schooling.

"Foreign schools cultivate creativity while the Chinese education system is too stiff and mechanical," Liu said.

There are, however, different voices. Tang Beili, a human resources manager of a foreign company, said she won't send her son abroad to finish his secondary schooling.

"On the one hand, my son is still too young to lead an independent life abroad, on the other hand I want my son to have a complete understanding of our culture and history," Tang said.

"I don't want my son returning home speaking English and forgetting all his Chinese," Tang said.

"Maybe one day he will go abroad to pursue his university studies," Tang said. "But not now."