In late July China's Ministry of Education released a policy document titled “Opinion on the establishment of higher education institutions during 14th Five Year period” (2021-2025). As the name suggests, the document sets out rules and priorities regarding setting up new higher education institutions, addressing number, education level, type and location.

Policy highlights include: 

• The transformation of independent colleges should be prioritised on a case-by-case basis. In the Chinese context, “independent colleges” refers to HEIs affiliated with public universities; the names of these institutions typically describe them as colleges of the parent university but they effectively act as independent institutions awarding their own degrees. According to another MoE document issued in 2020, suggested transformation routes include transitioning independent colleges to either public or private HEIs under their own names, as well as closing the institutions. 
• The increase in the number of institutions awarding bachelor’s degrees should be “controlled”, but local stakeholders should explore setting up institutions through donation or establishing a foundation.
• Education development in less-developed regions such as western China should be promoted, and local governments will be encouraged to deploy higher education resources in prefectural-level cities (i.e. cities other than provincial capitals) with quality education support systems.
• The establishment of Sino-foreign cooperative education should be encouraged in areas with a strong economic and educational foundation. Plans to develop Sino-foreign institutions with independent legal entity (i.e. branch campuses with their own degree-awarding powers, as opposed to joint programmes / institutes that are set up under a local university)  should be set out in provincial-level plans during the 14th Five Year period. 
• Domestic universities will no longer be supported and approved to set up branch campuses in other provinces, especially for national-level universities and for universities in central and western China establishing branch campuses in more developed eastern provinces. The MoE will also start to regulate and if necessary terminate existing branch campuses.
• Bachelors’ degrees at higher vocational institutions should be promoted, and their subject standards and catalogue should be improved. Meanwhile adult higher educational institutions should be encouraged to transform into higher vocational institutions, with those offering non-academic education instead transforming to further education institutions and those who have already stopped recruitment being formally closed.

Analysis 

Restrictions on out-of-province branch campuses and new public HEIs will lead to a slowdown in the growth of China’s HE provision, but the positive language around transnational education partnerships shows that there is still room for new projects of this kind. In particular the policy suggests new potential opportunities for Sino-foreign institutions with independent legal entity, and the British Council will continue to pay attention to any relevant provincial-level plans in this area.

The announcement continues previous policies to increase higher education provision in less developed parts of the country, and adds prefectural-level cities to this list. Chinese universities in many provinces are currently disproportionately located in provincial capitals so this policy is aimed to spread higher education resources more widely across the country.