China has become the world's biggest source of overseas students, Beijing Times reported.

By the end of 2011, more than 1.4 million Chinese students were studying abroad, an average increase of 23 percent for three consecutive years, according to statistics by the Ministry of Education issued on Monday.

The number of overseas Chinese students coming back to work in China also grew by 31 percent over the past two years, to 186,000 in 2011.

And the number of students coming to study in China totaled 290,000, also increasing 10.8 percent on average for two years.