In September 2020, the Ministry of Education (the MOE) put forward a policy to reform primary and secondary teacher certification, lowering the bar for qualified students to enter the teaching profession. According to the policy, from 2021 on, postgraduate students in education majors and students of tuition-exemption normal university programmes can be offered teacher certification in primary and secondary education if they pass the examinations developed by their own schools, without the need to take the National Teacher Certification Examination. 

As required by the MOE, relevant normal universities should develop their own examinations to assess the teaching competence of their students. The examination should include two parts—written test and interview. Students passing the written National Teacher Certification Examination test will be dispensed from having to pass written school-specific examinations. Furthermore, students’ internship performance can be taken into consideration during interviews.