New Country Guide published: People’s Republic of China

QAA has published a report on China's higher education sector and UK transnational education (TNE) market, exclusively for QAA's QE-TNE Scheme participants.

The report explores current policy and educational developments in the country, and is accompanied by valuable in-depth visit reports on current UK-China TNE arrangements involving the University of Liverpool and the University of Surrey.

HESA data shows that in 2021-22, China sent more students to the UK than any other overseas country: 27% of all non-EU students were from China. The number of Chinese students had increased by 41% over the previous five years, with a total of 151,690 Chinese students registered with UK providers.

That year, the number of transnational students in China totalled 71,210 - a significant increase from 48,965 in 2019-20. UK-China cooperative partnerships then accounted for around 20% of all Chinese-foreign joint programmes and institutions at undergraduate level and above, including 41 UK-China joint institutes.

QAA's comprehensive new report explains in detail the highly complex structures, processes, hierarchies, expectations and strategies underpinning China's higher education system, as well as the range of TNE arrangements operating in the country, and the challenges to such operations. The report also looks at such key areas as skills needs, government controls, legal frameworks and major players in transnational partnerships.

This Guide is part of QAA’s series of country resources which support our programme of country-specific quality enhancement thematic activity for QE-TNE Scheme participants.

QE-TNE Scheme Participants can access this Country Guide, the two visit reports, and the full suite of QE-TNE Scheme resources on our Membership Resources site. Sign up to use the site by completing our simple registration form.