BEIJING, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- Students at universities in China's less-developed western regions had benefited from a Ministry of Education initiative that provided free massive open online courses (MOOC) given by professors at prestigious universities like Peking and Tsinghua, the China Education Daily reported Monday.

Launched in 2013 to help address the unbalanced distribution of education resources between universities and improve quality of education, the series of online courses on physical education, health and arts were open to all higher education institutions across the country.

Over the past six years, a total of 26 million people took optional courses through the initiative across China and students at 489 universities based in the country's western regions benefited from it, the newspaper said, citing official figures.

The courses were increasingly popular among students and were believed to have helped increase both efficiency and quality of university education, according to the report.