Summary

China's Ministry of Education has announced the approval of 30 new transnational education programmes, which will start to recruit new students from the 2020-21 academic year. 28 of the programmes are at the bachelor's degree level while two will award master's degrees.

The UK was well-represented in this batch of approvals with six UK-China partnerships included in the list of approvals, all at the bachelor's degree level. This is second only to the US which had seven different programmes approved. One UK institution, the University of Strathclyde, had two programmes approved with different Chinese partners.

In line with previous trends, the largest proportion of partnerships were in the broad field of engineering, while science subjects (including chemistry, biology and biotechnology) were the next most common field of study. Other fields with approved partnerships included education, art & design, veterinary medicine, and one programme each in the fields of languages, law and management & administration.

Another similarity with previous trends is that there were few programmes approved in the wealthier parts of the country that host a large number of programmes approved in earlier stages of TNE development. Only one programme was approved in Beijing, with none in Shanghai or Tianjin. The province with the highest number of new partnerships was Henan with four, while several of the new approvals are in less-developed regions of western China such as Gansu, Yunnan and Guizhou.

Aside from these joint programmes, six joint institutes - which host multiple programmes in related subject areas - were approved earlier in 2019. All included at least one engineering programme although some also offered programmes in other adjacent fields such as information management systems or agricultural economic management. Five of the six approved joint institutes will offer master's degrees in addition to bachelor's degree programmes.

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

The biggest takeaway from the this list of approvals is that there does not appear to have been any major changes to policies guiding China's TNE approvals. The focus on engineering partnerships, preference for comparatively less-developed parts of the country and relatively low number of newly approved programmes are all in line with trends over the last few years.

As with the last few approval rounds, there are a notable lack of newly-approved programmes in the business & administration field compared to the high number of Chinese students going abroad to study this field, and the only approvals have been in niche areas rather than generic business programmes. This is due to a government policy which sees business programmes as oversupplied but encourages TNE partnerships which address national or regional development needs.

Recent approvals have shown a significant difference in level of study between different forms of TNE partnership. Only two of the 30 approved joint programmes were at the master's degree level, but five of the six joint institutes will include master's courses. It is not clear whether this is due to differences in policy or simply because smaller class sizes at the master's degree level make individual programmes in this field less financially sustainable.

Sources

MoE – Announcement of Sino-Foreign Co-Operative Education Programmes Approved in the First Half of 2019: http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A20/moe_862/201908/t20190822_395509.html  (in Chinese)