Private colleges drop entry criteria to fill places

Private colleges and universities in China have been forced to lower their minimum entry requirements after thousands of students failed to take up their offers of places.

Last week education authorities in Hubei province lowered entry requirements for more than 70 institutions after about 5,000 freshmen failed to turn up. One Xianning college reported 1,207 no-shows, according to Changjiang Daily.

Education authorities in Shanghai announced similar plans earlier this month, saying that 1,800 students due to start at five private institutes had cancelled their enrolments after deciding to repeat the national university and college entrance examination next year, said Liberty Daily.

Guangdong education institutes also amended their entry policies in a bid to fill empty seats in the event of students not arriving. Not only did they offer 30 per cent more places than were actually available, reported Nanfang Daily, but the placement process was also halted for three days earlier this month so that more than 11,000 students who were not accepted at their colleges or universities of choice had time to re-apply at others. Only 2,300 of these students made use of this opportunity.

Shen Hong, vice-dean of the School of Education at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said that one of the main reasons for the problem of vacant places was that among the 1,300 or so private mainland institutions, only 37 could issue state-recognised graduation certificates.

'Qualification is one of the key criteria of employment. That is why many students with offers from these colleges choose either to repeat or start working instead of wasting time and money on unrecognised certificates,' Professor Shen said.