Shanghai does well in new list of top international schools

Shanghai High School International Division replaced YK Pao School to top the second edition of the list of top international schools on China's mainland, which was released on Tuesday.

Ranked 5th last year, the school, an international division of a Chinese public school, was followed by Dulwich College Beijing this year, while  YK Pao School, a Shanghai-based private school, dropped to third place.

The ranking, including 100 schools in 24 cities on the Chinese mainland, was based on a peer-to-peer review conducted by Hurun Education between July and December 2018, with 330 international education experts, up three-fold from last year. Half of them were school principals and senior teachers, while the other half were investors, overseas study agents, training institutions and government education departments. 

They were asked to recommend up to five schools with good all-round education based on their opinions, and 282 schools received votes, almost double the number of last year.

Beijing and Shanghai accounted for half of the Hurun Education Top 100 list this year.

Beijing had 26 schools on the list, up 5 from last year, while Shanghai had 23, down 3, followed by Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Suzhou.

Beijing also had the most schools among the top 10 on the list, with five schools, followed by Shanghai with four.

The other two Shanghai schools among the top 10 were Shanghai World Foreign Language Academy and Shanghai Pinghe Bilingual School.

Pinghe, along with the SDSZ International Department, the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China Joint Program, and Guangdong Country Garden School, made into the top 10 for the first time.

Among the surveyed schools, annual tuition fees range from 100,000 yuan (US$14,925) to 150,000 for international departments of Chinese public schools, to 250,000 to 300,000 yuan for international schools open to non-Chinese passport holders only.