China's Ministry of Education has announced the most recent batch of transnational education partnership approvals. A total of 44 joint programmes were approved in the second half of 2019, including three partnerships with UK universities. All of the newly-approved partnerships will start to operate in the upcoming 2020-21 academic year.

The three approved UK partnerships are:

• A Doctor of Management (DMan) partnership in Innovation and Leadership between the University of Stirling and the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
• A bachelor's degree partnership in Mechatronic Engineering between Glyndwr University and Dalian Polytechnic University
• A bachelor's degree partnership in Computer Science between Heriot-Watt University and the Ocean University of China

Overall the leading partner country in this round of approvals is the US, with a total of 16 joint programmes: 15 bachelor's degree partnerships and one master's programme. Two other countries' partnerships also outnumber the UK: four programmes with French universities have been approved, all at the postgraduate level, while Australian universities will add four new bachelor's degree partnerships. However, the UK continues to have China's second-highest number of TNE partnerships overall.

Looking at subject areas, Engineering (including computer science) continues to be the most popular broad field, with a total of 20 new approvals. Two other fields have six new programmes each: Creative Arts and Business & Administration.

The current round of approvals relates specifically to individual joint programmes and does not include applications for joint institutes that host multiple programmes. The results of joint institute applications will be announced separately.

Analysis by Kevin Prest, Senior Analyst, British Council International Education Services

China’s Ministry of Education announces two batches of TNE programme approvals each year. The 44 new programmes in the current batch is slightly larger than the 36 programmes approved during the same period in 2018 or the 27 approved in the second half of 2017, suggesting that the MoE may be becoming slightly more flexible – although the rate of approvals still falls well short of its peak some years ago.

The continued dominance of engineering programmes shows the MoE’s continued focus on this area in line with national development priorities, while the prominent position of creative arts subjects shows rising demand for these programmes in China.

Although the latest batch of approvals included several business-related programmes, the majority are at the postgraduate level and most are in specialised sub-fields that link in with China’s other development priorities. For example, one of the approvals in this area was for a master’s degree partnership in Big Data and AI Management between Xi’an Jiaotong University and the SKEMA business school in France. The approval scope for more general business and management degrees is still quite limited.

Source

Ministry of Education – Announcement of Newly Approved Sino-Foreign Joint Education Programmes in the Second Half of 2019 (in Chinese): http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A20/moe_862/202003/t20200316_431648.html