BEIJING, Feb. 23 -- Three Shanghai private colleges will be allowed to admit students without national college entrance exam score requirements this year, marking a major change in the city's decades-old higher education admission system.

    ;High school graduates who signed up for Shanghai Sanda College, Shanghai Jianqiao Vocational College and Shanghai Xinqiao Vocation College will be admitted after passing school-organized exams only.

    No unified national college entrance exams are needed, officials with the Shanghai Education Commission said yesterday.

    "It's a significant pilot step in the city's and even the country's college entrance reform," said Li Ruiyang, director at the Shanghai Education Examination Authority under the commission.

    With the new policy, exam subjects, admission criteria and expected enrollment numbers will be totally up to the three individual colleges. Xinqiao and Jianqiao will still include Chinese, maths and English, but only English tests are required to enter Sanda, according to admission notices on the school Websites.

    Officials said entrance exams of the three colleges are scheduled to be held next month - three month earlier than the national entrance exam.

    Graduates who have been admitted will be disqualified from taking the national exam.

    Local universities are scheduled to enroll 107,000 freshmen this year, 8 percent higher than the number last year.

    About 130,000 local high school graduates are expected to sit this year's college entrance exam, officials said.

    (Source: Shanghai Daily)