China’s MoE approves 237 new TNE partnerships, marking huge growth

237 new TNE partnerships were approved in the latest round of approvals at the end of May, according to a summary from consultancy China Education International. This continues a steep upward trajectory since 2024, when the post-covid lull in such projects reversed.

The news comes as debates grow over the future of TNE and whether providers are invested in it for the right reasons.

Up until 2024, TNE partnership approvals in China peaked all the way back in 2012. The period between 2008 and 2012 was a point of early enthusiasm for the form of delivery and was growing in multiple major markets globally.

In China however, interest for new partnerships gradually waned up until the pandemic, where TNE developments took a major hit. With global mobility on hold and the Chinese market on complete lockdown, new partnerships crashed.

TNE has shifted further west than the coastlines, where with a few exceptions partnerships used to cling to. In this round of new partnerships, only the western-most provinces of Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Qinghai and Tibet are missing from the list.

The biggest growth isn’t entirely centred on tier 1 cities either. Shandong province has the largest number of new joint institutes and programmes, it’s 10 new institutes and 18 new joint programmes dwarfing Shanghai’s 1 new joint institute and 1 new joint programme.

While it is perhaps unfair to compare a city to a province, Tier 1 cities have long been hubs of higher education and generally attract more attention.

Hainan, which 3 years ago was positioned as an emerging HE hub as part of its designation as a free trade zone, only saw 3 new joint institute approvals and 2 new joint programmes. The province is however in the grand scale of China a small one, and not traditionally renowned for its universities.

China TNE experts are pointing to finances and policy as the main drivers.

Financially speaking, the sector is still reeling from the damage of the pandemic. China had some of the strictest social distancing rules globally, disrupting classes and access to university. International students were meanwhile entirely barred from entering the country after the country China shut its international borders.

TNE is seen by some analysts therefore as a way to boost the finances of the sector as a whole.

But national policy, some analysts say, has the final say. The Chinese ministry of Education aims to encourage more students to stay at home in China and curb the historically massive flows of students outbound to study overseas.

The incentive to stay is simultaneously growing stronger. More Chinese universities rank amongst the top institutions in the world every year, chipping away at the prestige of studying in countries like the UK or US.

TNE however exists in a middle ground — universities established domestically but joint-operated with a foreign provider. In this way, TNE certainly keeps domestic students at home, but not entirely at domestic institutions.