Thirty students from Tsinghua took home the prestigious National Scholarship awards given at a ceremony Jan. 28 in the Great Hall of the People. They represented the overall 230 Tsinghua students winning the National Scholarship for the year 2002. 51 of the students were "first class" receiver and 179 of them were the "second class" receiver.

Accepting the awards on behalf of the group was student representative Duan Lishu, of the Department of Biology. Vice President of the University Council Yang Zhenbin led the Tsinghua delegation.

Also attending the event were Vice Premier Li Lanqing, Minister of Education Chen Zhili, and Minister of Finance Xiang Huaicheng.

The National Scholarship was founded by the central government in 2002, aiming at giving tuition assistance to university students from poor families. Each year some 45,000 student all over China receive the Scholarship and 10,000 of them receive the first class scholarship (6,000 yuan, or more than $700 each year per person) while other 35000 receive the second class scholarship (4000 yuan, or nearly $500 each year for every winner).

(Liu Aixiang 10-03-2003)