A CITY school has apologized after appearing to urge students with poor academic records not to apply for China’s university admissions examination.

It was claimed online this week that Shanghai Changzheng Middle School had asked pupils ranked below 90 out of 150 in final tests to withdraw from national university entrance exams next June.

Critics said this was intended to boost the school’s university admissions rate figures and infringed students’ choices.

But yesterday, head teacher Li Shaobao apologized for this impression, saying the whole thing was a misunderstanding.

“I’m so sorry that such a thing happened in our school,” Li told Shanghai Daily.

“The teachers didn’t really mean to ask students to quit the exam, but just to motivate them to study harder,” claimed the head teacher.

Li said that only one class of Grade 11 students — who are aged around 16 — was involved and that a paper with an “agreement” was withdrawn.

“We held a meeting on Wednesday evening with parents, apologizing and explaining the real purpose of the action,” Li said.

“Students have the right to take the university entrance exam and the agreement is not valid at all,” Li admitted.

As well as encouraging students to work harder, the stunt was also intended to make them look at other further education options, claimed Li.

According to the post, students who didn’t make the grade would instead take part in independent recruiting tests of junior colleges or another exam in spring for lesser universities.

Previously, only the top 90 graduates of the school were admitted into universities each year, while the rest entered junior colleges, Li said.

Xiong Bingqi, an educational expert and vice director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said schools should provide information of all higher education options, but should not order students to withdraw from exams.

“Studying at a university is not suitable for everyone,” said Xiong. “But the final decisions should be made by students and their families — not schools or teachers.” The spring entrance exam used to be exclusive to former graduates, but will open to graduating students from next year.