English dropped from top Chinese varsity exams

Beijing: China's top universities have dropped English as a compulsory subject from their annual independent recruitment exams which began on 16 March 2013.
In most of these universities, those who have applied for science and engineering majors will only be required to take maths and physics exams, while art students will be required to take Chinese and maths exams, reported Xinhua.
Yu Han, an enrolment officer at Tsinghua University, said the subject was eliminated in order to reduce students' workload and attract talented students who excel in the subjects. Independent college entrance exams are held three months before the national exams, a process that allows universities to recruit more talented students.
This year, 27 Chinese universities are joining three leagues represented by Tsinghua University, Peking University and Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), with all three leagues holding recruitment exams simultaneously. The Peking University league consists of 11 universities, including Hong Kong University and Beijing Normal University.
The Tsinghua league is composed of seven universities, including the University of Science and Technology of China, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Renmin University and Zhejiang University. The BIT league is made up of nine schools, including the Harbin Institute of Technology and Tongji University.