China’s State Council recently issued a document titled “Opinions on Deepening Higher Education Reform of Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, discussing the government’s policy to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship among students in higher education (including both universities and higher vocational institutions). At the same time, more than 30 measures were later introduced by the Ministry of Education to support student entrepreneurship and scientific innovation.

These measures include:

• developing compulsory and elective courses on entrepreneurship, including accredited MOOCs and online courses
• developing a national teaching quality standard for entrepreneurship courses;
• providing funding for student entrepreneurs
• strengthening practices for supporting new businesses, including constructing specialized laboratories, training centres, science parks and business incubators
• providing favourable policies in fields such as business training, industrial and commercial registration, financing and taxation
• establishing cooperative mechanisms involving universities, enterprises, local governments, research institutes and international institutes
• encouraging companies and individuals to invest in student enterprises
• organizing national innovation and business-creation competitions
• reforming teaching and assessment methods, including inviting professional teaching and training resources such as industrial associations and enterprises or social organizations
• allowing students to suspend their studies to pursue new business
• providing student career guidance services.

This is not the first time the Chinese government has introduced policies supporting student entrepreneurship. The Ministry of Education issued a notice in December 2014 requiring colleges and universities to allocate a flexible period of schooling allowing students to suspend their studies temporarily to pursue business ideas. However, this new package of measures represents a more comprehensive system to support students' innovation and entrepreneurship, with a goal to set up an education system that nurtures students' innovative and entrepreneurial spirit, sense and ability by 2020.

Universities will have the autonomy to decide on the details of their entrepreneurship programmes, such as the courses they offer and the number of credits they will award. Examples of universities which have already introduced policies supporting entrepreneurship are Tongji University in Shanghai, which provides an innovation and entrepreneurship curriculum to students in all departments, and East China University of Science and Technology, which runs business incubators providing facilities and business counselling services. According to a survey by recruitment site Zhaopin.com, the proportion of students interested in starting their own business has doubled over the past year and now stands at 6.3 per cent.

Analysis by Liu Xiao xiao, Education Services Manager and Kevin Prest, Senior Analyst:

Encouraging universities to provide business and entrepreneurship training is an important aspect of these Measures. Higher education institutions are encouraged to cooperate with external partners, including overseas institutions, to meet these goals. There may be an opportunity for UK institutions to provide input and support on these programmes, especially in the field of online training programmes and instructor training.

Cooperation in this field could also lead to good opportunities for UK institutions to get involved in the undergraduate and vocational education development agenda with further partnerships with Chinese colleges on TNE programmes and joint training or research projects.

Promotion of entrepreneurship is playing an increasingly important role in China’s employment strategy, which calls for 10 million new urban jobs in 2015 as well as ensuring that the urban unemployment rate does not rise above 4.5 per cent. Student entrepreneurship policies are aligned with other measures to lower the threshold for starting a business and relax taxes and administrative fees.

Sources: http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2015-05/13/content_2861327.htm, http://news.xinhuanet.com/edu/2015-05/15/c_127803599.htm, http://www.dfdaily.com/html/3/2015/5/27/1272672.shtml