education - The brain drain continues

Efforts by the government to get the number of Chinese students abroad to return to their motherland have no effect, if we can believe the figures of the Chinese Ministry of Education, released earlier this month.
Over the past 15 years 700,200 students have left to study abroad and 172,800 returned to China, almost a quarter. In 2002 125,000 students left abroad, up from 17,000 in 1998. The increase came mostly from self-funded students, whose number multiplied 11 times over the past five year to 117,000 last year, compared to government-funded students.
The number of students going abroad is dropping dramatically: down from 125,000 in 2002 to 117.300 in 2003. Last year 20,100 students returned to China.
The figures have to be treated with cautious, since most information the Ministry suggests some underreporting of those returning. The figures seem to relate to those students returning right away after finish their study, while especially in the US students are allowed to remain to work for a year and sometimes longer after graduation.