Summary: 

Earlier this month (December 2017), China’s Ministry of Education announced that it would soon release national education quality standards for bachelor’s degree courses. Standards will be issued across 92 broad subject areas, covering all of the undergraduate fields of study taught by Chinese universities. These standards will set out minimum requirements for curriculum contents as well as detailed targets to raise the teaching ability of academic staff.

According to public statements from Ministry of Education officials, over 5,000 experts have contributed to these standards, which are now in their final adjustment phase before being officially released. This is the first time that these minimum standards have been issued across all subject areas. At the same time, the Ministry stresses that these are minimum standards rather than aiming to be a one-size-fits-all specification for all HEIs, as there is still a lot of variation between different types of HEI and across different parts of China.

Analysis by Kevin Prest: 

These new minimum standards are another example of China’s drive to improve the quality of its domestic universities. This drive has seen increasing numbers of China’s universities advance into the top levels of international rankings over the last decade, but there are still wide gaps in the quality of Chinese institutions. The new standards are largely aimed at bringing up the standards in the country’s less elite universities and addressing regional differences in education quality.

UK institutions operating transnational education programmes in China should also be aware of these new standards, and work with their Chinese partners to ensure that their courses meet these standards once they are released.

Source: 

1. National standards for teaching quality for bachelor’s degree courses to be announced (in Chinese): http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2017/12-06/8394118.shtml