Shanghai
Shanghai Singapore International School Pilots AI English Assessment for Admissions
A new partnership with Nasdaq-listed NetClass Technology will use artificial intelligence to evaluate language proficiency across admissions, class placement and staff training at SSIS.
Shanghai Singapore International School has signed a cooperation framework agreement with NetClass Technology to deploy an AI-powered English proficiency platform across the school. According to GlobeNewswire, the deal was announced on June 11, 2026, and will see NetClass's Classroom English Proficiency Assessment platform used to evaluate students and staff for admissions decisions, class placement and training optimisation.
NetClass, a Nasdaq-listed B2B smart education technology company with offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo, launched the CEPA platform in February 2026. The agreement with SSIS marks one of its first deployments at a K-12 international school in mainland China. The two parties have also established a framework for joint scientific research, including co-publication of academic papers on AI-assisted foreign language education.
What the platform does
The CEPA system is designed to produce standardised, machine-assessed proficiency scores that can feed directly into school processes, replacing or supplementing the informal language interviews and written tasks that many international schools use at the point of enrolment. For a school such as SSIS, which runs a bilingual early-years model in English and Mandarin and places students in tiered streams for Chinese language from the primary years onward, having a consistent digital measure of incoming language ability has obvious operational appeal.
Broader implications for the sector
The SSIS deal reflects a wider push by technology vendors to embed AI-driven assessment tools inside international schools across Asia. Admissions processes at well-subscribed Shanghai schools have historically relied heavily on interview panels and principal discretion, making them difficult for prospective families to navigate. A machine-scored language benchmark, if trusted by the school community, could bring greater transparency, though it also raises questions about how much weight a single automated metric should carry in what has traditionally been a holistic admissions process.
SSIS, which serves around 1,400 students at its Minhang District campus and offers Cambridge programmes through to IGCSE alongside the IB Diploma in Grades 11 and 12, has not yet published details on how the CEPA results will interact with its existing admissions criteria. The school and NetClass have indicated that further research outputs from the partnership will be released in due course.