SHANGHAI: Four Shanghai universities that included an English test in their independent admission examinations but chose to leave out Chinese have come under flak for giving "more importance to a foreign language".

Internet users flooded the Qiangguo Forum (bbs.people.com.cn) to voice their disapproval, calling the exams "traitorous", "discriminatory", and accused the universities of "blindly worshipping foreign languages".

Hu Guang, a representative of the Shanghai People's Political Consultative Conference, said the universities' decision to exclude Chinese from the subjects to be tested was "hasty, irresponsible, short-sighted and inconsistent with laws".