Summary:
Last month China's Ministry of Education announced new guidelines for Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) programmes at domestic universities, including joint Sino-foreign TNE courses. These guidelines call for improvements to teaching quality and teaching management and set stricter standards for the award of these degrees. One key reform is that from 2017 onwards candidates for MBA / EMBA courses must pass a unified national entrance exam in order to enrol at domestic universities, rather than tests organised by individual institutions.

The announcement - titled "Ministry of Education Opinions on Further Standardising MBA Degree Postgraduate Education" - sets out several requirements to improve teaching quality. Universities' enrolment plans will be "strictly controlled" in order to ensure that the institution has sufficient facilities and teaching resources for the number of students to be enrolled. Teaching standards should be refined, while joint articulation programmes with training agencies will be banned. Institutions will be forbidden from granting degrees to students who have not completed the required class hours or do not meet the relevant academic standards; bribery and abuse of power will be thoroughly investigated. Institutions will also be forbidden from conducting training overseas without approval, and overseas study trips should not be treated as sightseeing tours.

The announcement also concentrates on admission procedures for MBA and EMBA programmes. Aside from the unified national entrance examination mentioned above, student recruitment via agents will be forbidden, as will preparatory courses. Arrangements where students start the course before being formally enrolled will also be banned.

As well as the entrance examination, incoming students must also pass an ideological and political assessment; candidates that fail this assessment cannot be admitted to MBA or EMBA courses. Similarly, the announcement calls for a strengthening of the ideological and political education of students and an end to teaching which "violates political principles".

Course fees are also addressed by the announcement. Fees for MBA courses should be "reasonable", and must be clearly communicated to students. Institutions must comply with national regulations on postgraduate tuition fees, and tuition fees must be approved by the relevant provincial-level authorities.

Analysis by Kevin Prest, Senior Analyst Analysis and Liu Xiaoxiao, Education Services Manager:
China first started providing MBA degrees in 1991, and over 40,000 new students enrol on these programmes each year. At present there are 231 higher education institutions offering MBA programmes, while 64 have been approved to offer EMBA programmes through independent admission procedures.

The tightened admission regulations are an attempt to better control the standard of EMBA programmes, which are often seen as little more than an expensive platform for networking. In 2014 the government cracked down on public officials and SOE executives attending these programmes, requiring them to seek approval before enrolling on EMBA courses and barring them from receiving scholarships or spending public funds on the programmes. The regulations do not define what a “reasonable” tuition fee would be, but the current cost of an EMBA programme in China can often add up to over $100,000 USD.

The impact of these requirements is likely to be negative for domestic Chinese MBA and especially EMBA programmes, including TNE courses delivered in cooperation with overseas universities. However, it could have a positive effect on demand for UK MBA programmes, as the stricter admissions standards could encourage students to go overseas – according to the British Council’s experience, students see preparing for China’s national postgraduate entrance examination as time-consuming and its content as irrelevant to their future studies, and many students mention this as a contributing factor to their decision to study abroad. The increased ideological content of domestic courses is also unlikely to be attractive to MBA candidates. On the other hand, price controls may have the opposite effect, increasing the attractiveness of domestic courses.

Sources:
1. Shanghai Daily - New guidelines raise EMBA standards - http://www.shanghaidaily.com/national/New-guidelines-raise-EMBA-standard...
2. Ministry of Education - Ministry of Education Opinions on Further Standardising MBA Degree Postgraduate Education (in Chinese) - http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A22/moe_836/201604/t20160406_236783.html
3. Financial Times - Xi’s war on corruption spreads to China’s executive MBAs (2014) - https://next.ft.com/content/7804742c-34aa-11e4-b81c-00144feabdc0?siteedi...