Postgraduates in China will focus more on academic research, as the Chinese government will take this measure at the means to assess postgraduate education, Minister of Education Zhou Ji said at a press conference Thursday.

"Postgraduate literally means students studying by doing research," said Zhou.

He said China will increase the proportion of research work in the postgraduate education. As a result, tutors or postgraduates who do not have any research projects will be taken as disqualified.

During the past 20 years, China has made great improvements in postgraduate education, and a large number of qualified students have acknowledged as "excellent" by top universities worldwide.

On January 21 this year, more than 1,170,000 students took entrance examinations for postgraduate study -- one in two undergraduate students.

Zhou said China will keep to the current postgraduate education system which is research-oriented, despite that universities in other countries use postgraduate education as "transitional education" and focusing on course study.

As to the doctoral students, Zhou said that they are expected to work more in teaching, research and educational administration.

In 2005, China plans to recruit 4.75 million college students. Currently, the total on-campus student population in China is more than 20 million.