Mainland schools need reform to compete

When the gaokao, or national college entrance exam, scores are released every summer they usually cause a media frenzy, as pages and airtime are devoted to stories about the top-scoring students and their families.

But this summer, besides such routine coverage, two other gaokao-related stories have grabbed the headlines.

Two well-known universities in Shanghai - Fudan University and Jiaotong University - were at the heart of one of the stories, when Fudan accused Jiaotong of trying to poach students that it had already enrolled.