AIDS treatment Premier Li Keqiang has called for unremitting* efforts to prevent and treat major infectious diseases such as AIDS ahead of the 32nd World AIDS Day that falls on December 1 each year. Li said in an instruction that China has made marked achievements in the prevention and treatment of AIDS while facing some new situations requiring attention. Inadequate sleep A survey by China Youth Daily found that 82.4 percent of Chinese parents worry their children are getting insufficient* sleep. “The sleeping habits of primary and middle school students are getting worse, and the proportion of those lacking sleep is rising,” Sun Hongyan, director of the childhood research institute at the China Youth and Children Research Center, was quoted as saying by the newspaper. Nearly 63 percent of Chinese children and adolescents aged between 6 and 17 sleep less than eight hours per day, and some 81.2 percent of teenagers aged between 13 and 17 sleep less than eight hours, according to a white paper released by the Chinese Sleep Research Society in March. Top colleges For the first time, four of the top 10 universities in Asia are from the Chinese mainland, according to the latest rankings released last week by London-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). Tsinghua University ranks fourth in Asia, with Peking University fifth, Zhejiang University sixth and Fudan University seventh. Mainland universities’ QS rankings have improved steadily. There was only one mainland university among the top 10 when the rankings were first published in 2009 and just two in the top 20. HK students The number of higher education institutions on the mainland admitting Hong Kong students in 2020 will increase by 11 to 122, the Education Bureau (EDB) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government said. Under the scheme, 122 higher education institutions from 21 provinces or municipalities and one autonomous region of the mainland will accept applications from candidates sitting for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) Examination in 2020.(SD-Agencies) |