Students from low-income families in rural areas will be able to apply for places at one of China's top universities, Tsinghua University, under the provisions of a preferential recruitment plan, the university's admissions office said earlier this week.

Tsinghua University will recruit 5 percent of its new undergraduate students from rural areas, or about 160, through the plan in a bid to reduce the education gap between cities and rural areas, encourage social mobility and balance the use of the nation's education resources, said Yu Shijie, director of the university's admissions office.

The plan, launched in 2011 with five other top universities including Nanjing University and Zhejiang University, aims to increase education equality in higher education.

In previous years, high schools from rural areas had the right to recommend a student to participate in the plan. This year, Tsinghua has put more power in the hands of students.

According to the preferential recruitment policy, students from rural areas who pass a separate test designed under the plan could be admitted by the university with scores lower than the regular admission score.

To avoid city students pretending to be rural ones in order to benefit from the preferential policy, universities require applicants to submit a three-year complete school record from a high school in a rural area.

Peking University, Renmin University of China and Wuhan University have also launched similar plans to recruit more students from rural areas.

Liu Yunshan, an education professor at PKU, conducted research into the number of students from rural areas attending PKU. His study found that between 1978 and 1998, about 30 percent of PKU students came from rural families, but that by 2005 the figure had fallen to 11 percent.

The central government is determined to increase education equality at the university level. The number of rural students attending key universities is featured in both the 2014 and 2015 government reports.

Premier Li Keqiang has urged on numerous occasions an increase in the number of students from rural areas attending top universities.