Summary

In line with a policy which started last year, China's Ministry of Education has announced a list of recommended open online courses from the country's universities and higher vocational institutions. The list includes 690 courses at the bachelor's degree level and 111 at the higher vocational diploma level, which are available through a variety of MOOC platforms.

The announcement is aimed to boost the visibility of MOOCs in China in order to support quality online higher education, supplement traditional education and improve equality across the country. Most (but not all) of the selected courses were produced by top Chinese universities which are included in the country's World Class Universities project. They cover a wide range of subjects including sciences, engineering, literature, business and even student employability.

The recent announcement supplements a list of 490 high-quality MOOCs which was announced last year. The Ministry of Education aims to increase the list to cover 3,000 courses by 2020.

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

The policy to publicise high-quality MOOCs shows that the Chinese government wishes to increase the use of online higher education and to expand it beyond traditional students. It ties in with a number of government priorities including increasing education resources available to people in less-developed western and rural parts of China and encouraging people to take part in continuing education. Although the courses listed in the announcement had already been available to the public, the announcement is intended to encourage greater use of the courses the government assesses as high-quality.

The growth of MOOCs and other online higher education programmes has slowed compared to earlier in the decade, but recent analysis by MOOC search engine Class Central found that China's largest MOOC platform XuetangX is now the world's third most popular such platform with a total of 14 million registered users. Online education more broadly is still seeing very fast growth, with video-based English learning platforms such as VIPKid serving large numbers of students.

Sources

Xinhua: Chinese gov't recommends online courses to boost MOOC - http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/23/c_137768203.htm

Ministry of Education: Announcement of the 2018 national high-quality open online course assessment results (in Chinese, with full list) - http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/A08/s5664/moe_1623/s3843/201901/t20190121_367540.html

Class Central: Year of MOOC-based Degrees: A Review of MOOC Stats and Trends in 2018 - https://www.class-central.com/report/moocs-stats-and-trends-2018/