Less privilege in China's college enrolment

Math, science and sport competition winners will no longer receive extra points on their college application, the Education Ministry announced Wednesday amid China's college admittance reform.

The ministry also canceled bonus points added to results on the national college entrance exam, or gaokao, based on good morality and physical performance.

In China, gaokao results are the major assessment standard for college enrollment of students. The exam saw some 9.3 million test takers in 2013.

For years, China has had the tradition of awarding extra scores to college applicants who win major sports events, math or science competitions, which has prompted a boom in math and science training centers.

Bonus points are also common for students from Taiwan, ethnic minorities, children of martyrs and returned overseas Chinese. There are no current plans to remove this policy.

The latest move does not mean that the students' achievement in some areas become useless, according to the ministry.

The specialty and achievement of students will be recorded for college references and in a pilot program, some "extra-special" students may be directly enrolled by some colleges through an internal selection without assessing their performance in the national exam.

As a supplement of the gaokao system, the pilot program was launched in 2003 and currently covers 90 colleges and universities. They are allowed to recruit about five percent of the total quota allocated to them.

The gaokao was restored in 1977 after 10 years of suspension.

In recent years, China has been struggling to improve its college recruitment system to make it more fair and transport more talents for its fast-growing high-tech industries.

On Tuesday the ministry issued two documents to stress evaluating the students by overall competency including their actual skills, physical health, art cultivation and social practice, instead of the solely exam scores.