Jiangsu will strengthen efforts to admit more students from rural and low-income areas to its higher education institutions, the provincial education examination authority announced recently.

The special program will target students from a total of 39 low-income districts and counties, and counties with poverty-relief allowances, which are mostly located in central and northern Jiangsu.

However, students will only qualify for assistance if they have lived in the province and studied at local high schools for more than three consecutive years.

Schools participating in the program include the 72 universities run directly by the Ministry of Education and the province’s 23 colleges that apply independent enrollment methods, as well as 12 top local schools including Soochow University and Nanjing Normal University.

To ensure that only high-quality candidates are admitted, the circular called for a strict examination system.

The schools have published their enrollment guides, and the preliminary examination will be published before May 15.

The list of applicants that passed the preliminary test will be published before May 20, and these candidates will take further examinations before June 22, after the national college entrance examination finishes.

The final admission results will be published before July 20.

For more information, interested students can visit the official websites of MOE and the participating schools.