Migrant students will be able to apply to study at local polytechnics and vocational schools for the first time this year.

The Shanghai Education Commission announced yesterday that 32 polytechnics and full-time vocational schools would enroll 2,360 migrant children whose parents had a steady job in the city.

Applicants should be under the age of 18 and have been studying in local middle schools for at least two consecutive years. The children and their parents should hold valid Shanghai residency permits.

Students need to sit exactly the same high school and polytechnic entrance exam as their local peers, which is scheduled for next month.

They will be enrolled according to their exam results, commission officials said.

Yin Houqing, the commission's vice director, said that the new policy was an important breakthrough in accepting migrant students into the local education system.

"It's a trial to entitle migrant children to the same right to education their Shanghai-native peers have," Yin said.

Under China's permanent residency registration, or "hukou," children are funded by the government to study where their "hukou" are.

Otherwise they have to study at private schools.