Ministry of Education: Compulsory education schools are strictly prohibited from establishing key classes, experimental classes, or fast-slow classes

Why does the Ministry of Education’s Sunshine Enrollment Campaign cover high school levels this year?

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 3 — (Reporter Wang Peng) On April 3, the reporter learned from the Ministry of Education that the General Office of the Ministry of Education recently issued a notice to deploy the special action for Sunshine Enrollment in primary and secondary schools (2026), making arrangements and clarifying that schools providing compulsory education are strictly prohibited from establishing or in disguise establishing key classes, experimental classes, fast-slow classes, and promoting teacher allocation and student assignment imbalance; they will push for balanced allocation of teaching staff, random assignment of students to classes, and fully implement balanced class composition. Once the class assignment results are publicized and confirmed, no unauthorized changes may be made.

It is reported that, compared with the previous two years, this year’s special action expands its coverage from “compulsory education” to “general high schools,” connecting the governance chain of compulsory education and education at the high school stage. The notice also explicitly requires that affiliated middle schools of universities, provincial high schools, and urban high schools in cities under district administration are strictly prohibited from illegally “snatching top spots” in enrollment targeted at county areas, thereby forming a Sunshine Enrollment system covering all stages of primary and secondary education.

According to the notice, primary and secondary schools are strictly prohibited from conducting illegal early admissions, admissions exceeding the planned quota, and cross-regional enrollment. They are also strictly prohibited from carrying out in disguised form early admissions under names such as “intent registration,” “pre-admission agreements,” “guaranteed admission agreements,” and “class assignment guarantee agreements.” They are strictly prohibited from collecting so-called “school-choice fees” and “intent fees” during the enrollment process, and they are strictly prohibited from linking admissions and offers of admission with various forms of sponsorships such as “donations for education and poverty alleviation” and “education funds.”

With regard to stricter regulation of specific types of admissions, the notice proposes to fully implement a provincial-level review and filing system for specific types of admissions. Any local authority or any school that carries out special admissions in the compulsory education stage under the name of early cultivation programs for innovative talents without provincial approval is strictly prohibited. Pilot projects for reform of youth football talent cultivation must be strictly limited to the pilot scope. Schools carrying out small-language (minor language) distinctive cultivation programs should reasonably determine the enrollment scope and plans; during the transition from primary school to junior high school, they must not conduct or disguise cultural subject tests.

In addition, the notice also requires efforts to accelerate the advancement of information interconnection and sharing related to enrollment, such as household registration, property, residence permits, social security, and student status. It will develop a list of operational guidance for “one matter for education enrollment.” For online business, platform-based handling will enable “one network for everything,” including registration, review, and admission. For offline business, the filling out of forms and submission of proof materials will be simplified to achieve “access through one door.” Localities with the necessary conditions are encouraged to explore using digital means to provide intelligent consulting services such as policy Q&A and registration guidance.（End）