Details emerge about open gaokao

Shanghai will allow non-local students to take the local national college entrance examinations based on how long their parents have lived and worked in the city, a local education official said at a press conference Wednesday.

The details are the first to emerge about the local government's plan to open the exams, known as the gaokao, to non-local students. The change would give Shanghai's half a million or so primary and secondary students who reside with their non-local parents better access to the city's universities.

"The plan will for the first time open the gaokao to the children of people without Shanghai household registration. The requirements for their parents include whether they have a stable job and residence and how long they have paid into the local social security system," said Yin Houqing, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission.

The education bureau will also consider how many years the children have been in school in Shanghai, Yin said. It plans to release more details about the proposal by the end of the year.

In 2011, there were more than 500,000 children of non-locals who were studying in primary and secondary schools across the city, according to figures that the education bureau released last November.

"However, the government's major concern in drafting the plan will not focus on competition between locals and non-locals, but rather on the educational needs of the growing number of migrant workers' children and the city's limited resources for education," Yin said at the press conference.

Under the current rules, most non-local students have to return to where their household was registered to take the gaokao.

"It is time for a city with a large proportion of migrants to open up its education resources, not only because children from other provinces have the same right to higher education as locals, but because it will also promote the free flow of the best students," said Ren Yuan, a professor of sociology at Fudan University's School of Social Development and Public Policy.

Breaking down barriers will also help universities and colleges in Shanghai obtain better students, Ren said. Students from other provinces usually face stiffer competition than local students getting admitted into Shanghai's colleges and universities.

Opening up the higher education system to non-local students can also help the city's colleges and universities make full use of their resources as the number of students who take the gaokao in Shanghai has been gradually declining, Ren said. Only 55,000 students sat the exams in June.

"It is not good to continue this regional protectionism in education," Ren told the Global Times. "The gaokao should become more open and equitable over the long run, but changes need to be carried out gradually."