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Established in 1902, the Beijing Normal University (BNU or colloquially Beishida) began as the Faculty of Education of Capital Metropolitan University, which facilitated teacher training in Chinese higher education.

It kept its "normal school" terminology to mark its role in training schoolteachers in the early 20th Century. It is now a public research intensive university with its main disciplines in sciences and humanities, teacher education and educational science.

It is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China and was recognised by the Chinese Ministry of Education as a Class A Double First Class University.

There are 23,300 full-time students, including 9,500 undergraduates, 12,000 graduates and 1,800 long-term international students.

The campus has one faculty - the Faculty of Education - 26 schools and colleges, two departments and 43 research institutes. The library has over 4.3 million volumes.

BNU was one of the first Chinese institutions to recruit international students, and now has around 1,800 long-term international students from over 100 countries and regions. Known for its Mandarin Chinese study programmes, BNU also collaborates with Princeton University for the Princeton in Beijing program.

BNU also collaborates with the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) on SUSS's Master of Arts in Chinese Language and Literature. The university¡¯s current campus was built in 1954, located in northwest downtown Beijing in the Haidian district and is the closest Haidian university to Tiananmen Square.

In 2002, a sister campus was established collaboratively by the Zhuhai municipal government and Beijing Normal University in the coastal city of Zhuhai, Guangdong.