Director: Daniel C. Levy

Three Shanghai Private Colleges are Granted Major Admission Freedom

(Entry by Yingxia Cao)

PROPHE Summary:

The local government in Shanghai is now permitting three MOE recognized private higher education institutions to run their own entrance examinations three months before the National College Entrance Examination and admit students by their own criteria. The unified national examination is not required and high school graduates who are qualified and admitted are not permitted to take the National College Entrance Examination and then to choose other institutions.

For the full story see Xinhua Net, "Shanghai students to dodge exam", Feburary 23, 2005. Available online at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-02/23/content_2608297.htm.

PROPHE Observation:

The policy of granting admission freedom to private higher education institutions made in Shanghai is remarkable for at least two reasons. First, Chinese private higher education institutions are still highly controlled by local or central government in diploma and degree granting, criteria and student number of admission, and program provision. Granting private colleges and universities almost "total freedom" in admission in Shanghai is a major step towards the institutional autonomy that private colleges and universities in China have been calling for following the issue of Law on the Promotion of Non-government Education , which says "the nation ensures the autonomy of non-governmental schools". Second, the new policy of letting private college applicants skip the mandatory examination for high school graduates who wants to go to college, private or public, is also a milestone in the reform of the National College Entrance Examination that the public has advocated for decades and in governmental special consideration of the private higher eduction sector that private colleges and universities have lobbied for recently.