Prior to the start of the new academic year in the fall, East China Institute of Politics and Law will become SJTU's law school, according to university spokesman Ni Hao.

The consolidation still needs the approval of the Ministry of Education in Beijing, but university President Xie Shengwu and other administrators do not foresee any major problem.

The Shanghai No. 2 Medical University will likely become SJTU's medical school sometime next year, Ni said.

Xie added, "Our merger with the former Shanghai Agriculture College in 1999 set an example of efficiency and success for future consolidations."

Officials of SJTU, which has its main campus near the Xujiahui shopping district, said their plans call for transferring the law institute's 1,600 freshmen to the university's Minhang District campus.

Gong Xiaomei, law institute spokeswoman, said the institute's small campus near Zhongshan Park in western Shanghai prevents the school from enrolling more than the 3,000 students it already has. So it has been decided to link up with SJTU, she said.

The law institute's upperclassmen and graduate students, who number about 1,400, will continue to study at the institute's campus.

Unlike US law and medical schools, which require their students to have undergraduate degrees, Chinese law and medical schools have undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs.

None of the professors at the law institute and the No. 2 Medical University, located near downtown Fuxing Park, will lose their jobs under the SJTU takeover, Jiaotong officials said. The administrators of the two schools will also remain employed, but some will be shifted to lesser positions, they added.

SJTU now has an enrollment of 20,500.

(Eastday.com.cn 04/10/2001)