Chinese regulators have closed more than a fifth of partnerships between local and foreign universities during the past year.
The Ministry of Education made the announcement this month and it affects 234 partnerships with foreign universities, comprising five institutions jointly managed by Chinese and foreign universities as well as more than 200 jointly managed and delivered academic programmes.
Once seen as a way to import educational know-how while allowing foreign universities to tap the Chinese market, foreign partnerships are now increasingly under political and financial strain, and face stiffer competition from domestic universities.
China has been closing partnerships between local and foreign universities over the past year
The ministry cited a variety of reasons for the closures, including poor quality, lack of enrolment and financial mismanagement. Before the closures China had more than 1,000 jointly managed partnerships in post-secondary education.
It is unclear exactly why China has chosen to close so many of the programmes in the past year, but the decision comes at a time when tertiary institutions have been under increased scrutiny. There have been no mass closures in previous years.
Six of the foreign partnerships closed this year were with China’s most prestigious universities, Peking and Tsinghua, suggesting that even the most powerful academic organisations are feeling the pressure of the government’s crackdown on western thought and ideas.
A list of the cancelled programmes revealed that foreign partners affected included UK’s City and Bournemouth universities, Australia’s University of Melbourne and US institutions including the University of Florida and City University of Seattle, as well as Lyon university in France.
“This is meant to be a turning point,” said Mr Jiang. “Officials are telling Chinese schools that they are under close scrutiny in the next few years.” He said the closures of so many programmes would have required direction “from the top”.
In the early 2000s, China seemed an attractive market for US and European universities that were seeking new revenue streams abroad. China’s education ministry announced in 2003 that it would allow the establishment of independent joint-venture universities.
Tsinghua University's main campus
However, only nine such campuses were approved before regulators suspended approvals two years ago. A foreign education institution can now only open single-degree joint programmes or joint institutes if they are hosted by an existing Chinese university.
That has put foreign education players in a tight spot financially. Education lobbyists say approvals from the Ministry of Education for 2+2 undergraduate programmes, where the student spends two years on the Chinese campus and two years at the foreign partner institution, have all but stopped.
Officials are now being forced to keep students in China for three, if not all four years, of such undergraduate programmes, where the institutions must charge lower tuition levels approved by local educational bureaus. This means margins have decreased, making upholding quality more difficult.
“You have a limited understanding among Chinese partners for how a US university functions and, paired with existing financial concerns, that leads to a tedious need to make the case for even the most basic academic and academic support programmes that have to be put in place, while no such justifications are required for all the new buildings that are being constructed,” said a foreign former administrator at Wenzhou Kean University, a joint-venture university with an English-speaking campus.
Chinese regulators have closed more than a fifth of partnerships between local and foreign universities during the past year.
Officials are now being forced to keep students in China for three, if not all four years, of such undergraduate programmes, where the institutions must charge lower tuition levels approved by local educational bureaus. This means margins have decreased, making upholding quality more difficult.
