Shanghai’s private primary and middle schools will carry out their admission processes simultaneously with public schools from this year, the local education authority announced on Wednesday. Interviews and assessments are banned in the process and schools can’t use students’ test scores and competition or training certificates for reference in selection. Programs for admitting students with special talents will be canceled from this year. When the number of applicants exceeds places in a private school, students will be picked in random computer draws. For fairness, students will submit applications on a unified platform, and the draws will be done with a unified computer software by district education authorities. The whole process will be recorded and monitored by city and district education administrators, supervisory departments and parent representatives. Private schools without boarding facilities will only admit students in the district where they are located. Schools can set up different application categories for students, such as boarding, non-boarding and joint programs with universities. Schools can make admission plans for each category and do computer draws respectively. In Shanghai, primary schools include grades 1 to 5 and middle schools grades 6 to 9. Fifth graders of schools with all nine grades can apply to stay at the same school or other schools for the next four years. The draws for students choosing to stay will take place in late April, ahead of draws for outside applicants, which will be in May. Those not selected in the draws will be distributed to public schools by district education authorities. “The changes in admission policy will push private schools to develop themselves by improving their capacity in educating students instead of relying on selecting outstanding students,” said Jia Wei, deputy director of Shanghai Education Commission. “It is also expected to provide fair development opportunities for private and public schools, optimize the education ecology and ease parents’ anxiety.” Previously, private schools could arrange campus activities and interviews to select students and made decisions earlier than public schools that take in students according to locality. There had been no limits on the number of schools each student could apply for and those who failed to be admitted in private schools would not have their chance to enroll in public schools affected. This resulted in many parents putting their children in cramming schools to prepare for interviews at popular private schools and rushing between schools on interview days, putting a heavy burden on the children. From 2018, the city’s education commission ordered primary schools, either private or public, to carry out admission at the same time with each student able to only apply to up to two private schools. Private schools could still arrange interviews. But those who failed to be admitted to private primary schools could lose the chance to be admitted to popular public schools as it was possible that such schools had taken in enough students while they were trying their luck at private ones. Meanwhile, authorities have invited schools with high education quality, public and private, to help less popular schools improve and balance education quality among schools. Public schools are also asked to organize “campus open days” to help parents better understand them before application. The measures have eased many parents’ craze for private schools and the number of applications for private schools has dropped sharply. Private middle schools still made selections for admission ahead of public schools in previous years. This year, their admission will also be at the same time as public schools. District education bureaus and schools will release more details about their own admission policies later. “We will study the city education commission’s document carefully and work out our admission plans accordingly,” said Lu Huiwen, general principal of Xiehe Education Group, which runs several bilingual schools in Shanghai. Yang Zhenfeng, director of the commission’s basic education division, said the admission policy for international students had not changed. Because of the coronavirus epidemic, schools will hold this year’s “campus open days” online from March 21. Kindergartens and primary schools will organize meetings between the end of March and the beginning of April to explain the new policy to parents of graduating students.