Laws of the People's Republic of China

Circular of the Ministry of Education Concerning Further Regulating Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in School Running

Jiao Wai Zong [2007] No.14

The education department (commission) of each province, autonomous region and municipality directly under the Central Government, and the Education Bureau of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corp.:

This Ministry has successively promulgated a series of regulatory documents since the Rules on Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in School Running and the implementation measures took effect, which play an important role in strengthening the administration of Chinese-foreign cooperation in school running.

However, some serious problems still exist there on which all local administrative education departments and all higher education institutions shall lay great stress. Some regions and schools attach particular importance to the repetitive establishment of low-level educational programs of business, management, computer, IT and other subjects (specialties) whose cost is relatively cheap without considering their goals and operation capacity and carefully examining the qualification and school-running capacity of foreign parties; some schools fail to scrupulously design the mode and teaching arrangement of Chinese-foreign cooperation school running, they have a low proportion of superior education resources, especially those special series of lectures, introduced from foreign countries, and also have a low proportion of courses given by foreign-party teachers, so it is very difficult to guarantee quality of school running; some seek for economic benefits by not following the principle of bringing welfare to the general public in school running of Chinese-foreign cooperation ; and some even lack the awareness of running schools in accordance with law and maintaining the education sovereignty, damage the teachers and students' legal rights and interests and even give rise to group incidents.

In light of the recent field inspection and review results of Chinese-foreign cooperative school running, the publicity of some institutions' and programs' enrolment is not true and the students are not enrolled in prescribed ways. In some programs which we incorporated into the state enrolment plan for schools of higher education, some students are admitted by way of violating the related state policies; in some programs awarding diploma and academic degree of foreign educational institutions, some students cannot get foreign diploma and academic degree on schedule and some cannot get a visa for studying abroad; some higher vocational training educational programs attract students by promising the enrollment by foreign universities for bachelor's degree even master's degree, but it is not easy to address the issue on authentication of the academic diplomas got by students from foreign universities; some higher education institutions need to be regulated further in terms of fee charging in Chinese-foreign cooperation; some higher education institutions, especially some key ones, confuse the limits of policies on Chinese-foreign cooperative school running purposely on in giving preparatory courses of foreign universities or similar courses; some higher education institutions fail to demonstrate the educational programs built up by Chinese-foreign cooperation sufficiently, the cooperative agreements they concluded are not standard and precise, and their accounting management is not n line with the related legal requirements or even in chaos. Some schools do not lay enough stress on the entitled rights of the Chinese parties, their management right in running institutions or programs cooperatively is not given into full play and their due leadership and decision-making right are even weakened. The coordination and supervision functions of some local administrative education departments are not discharged sufficiently, and the slack of law enforcement occurs from time to time.

For the purpose of further regulating Chinese-foreign cooperation in school running, the related issues are hereby notified as follows:

1.

To effectively enhance the sense of responsibility and emergency to maintain the stability of higher education institutions. Maintaining the stability of higher education institutions is an requirement that is inevitable to build a socialist harmonious society and a guarantee which is important for higher education undertaking to develop continuously, coordinately and soundly To run schools by Chinese-foreign cooperation, it is necessary to further enhance political perspicacity responsibility, stick to maintaining education policies' seriousness, stability and consistency, stick to safeguarding students' legitimate rights and interests, prevent and eliminate the negative effects of student group incidents incurred by all kinds of factors on Chinese-foreign cooperation in school running, and promote the Chinese-foreign cooperation in school running to develop soundly.

2.

To steadfastly adhere to the principle of for the public welfare in running schools. The related higher education institutions which have cooperatively-run educational programs shall collect fees strictly according to the charging items stipulated by the state and the charging rates approved by the people's governments at the provincial level of the places where they are located, and make the charging items and rates public to the society. It is necessary to rectify the guiding thoughts for school running, resist and correct the wrong understanding and practices that running schools involving Chinese-foreign cooperation is taken as a means of bringing about economic income to schools.

3.

To take the introduction of quality education resources of high quality as the core and examining the satisfaction of requirements carefully by cooperatively-run programs before being approved. From now on, when conducting the examination and approval for a educational institution or program involving Chinese-foreign cooperation that undertakes certificated higher education of the college or higher level, the Ministry of Education shall take whether the foreign educational institution is famous or has famous subjects, specialties or famous professors as the major basis, and, in principle, shall not approve the same kind of cooperative educational program which a foreign educational institution has launched in China or of which the specialty is concentrated relatively in China and the charging rates are obviously far beyond its cost on running schools.

4.

To make more efforts in researching policy and planning on development of running school of Chinese-foreign cooperation undertaking higher vocational education in order to effectively take strengthening intension construction and improving quality of education as the major tasks of the reform and development of higher vocational education. By the end of 2008, each region shall suspend accepting the applications for archive-filing serial number submitted by educational institutions or programs involving Sino-foreign cooperation of this category. During this period, all regions shall earnestly do a good job in formulating plans and making preparations for the development planning for the cooperative school-running in higher vocational education of this region in terms of subjects, specialties, choice of foreign countries, quantity and layout, etc, and submit a report to the Ministry of Education to provide schools with a guidance for introducing educational resources of high quality from foreign countries, draw upon foreign parties' good experiences in the terms of subject and specialty arrangement, curriculum system reform, teaching content renewal and talent cultivation mode innovation, etc., and reinforce their capability in cultivating high skilled talents in the fields of advanced manufacturing industry, modern agriculture and modern service industry, especially, in the fields of energy, minerals, environmental protection and banking, etc.

5.

To accurately hold the policy limit on Chinese-foreign cooperative school running. At present, some higher education institutions, especially some key ones, provide so-called preparatory course of a certain foreign university of which some are actually foreign language training. As the foreign university does not take part in the teaching activities conducted within the territory of China, the Chinese party and foreign party sign a so-called agreement on mutual recognition of credits and promise that the students attending preparatory courses have opportunities to continue studying at the foreign university and may, after finishing their study, get diplomas of the university. The educational activity mentioned above is not an educational activity carried out by Chinese-foreign cooperation and is not beneficial for improving the teaching quality of higher education institutions. All higher education institutions shall put the emphasis of their work on the improvement of education quality, and no one may conduct any such educational activity, let alone in the name of Chinese-foreign cooperative school running.

6.

To further strengthen supervision over and management of the whole process of Chinese-foreign cooperative school running according to the spirit of governing education under law and standardized administration. At present, the major stress in work shall be to administrate the general regulations and advertisements on recruiting students in a standardize manner and to supervise over such links which are easy to cause contradictions as issuance of academic credentials and diplomats and educational systems. We shall conduct an inspection by putting emphasis on the two aspects mentioned above, timely solve the problems found out and firmly and reliably handle serious problems. Such policies shall be rigidly put into effect as that the general regulations or advertisement on student recruiting of any educational institution or program involving Chinese-foreign cooperation shall be timely reported to the organ in charge of the examination and approval for record and that the school-running report of any cooperatively-run educational institution or program shall, within the prescribed time limit, be submitted to the organ in charge of the examination and approval, etc.

7.

This Ministry will adopt corresponding measures to further strengthen administrative supervision over school running of Chinese-foreign cooperation, and the stress shall be laid on the acceleration of the construction of "two platforms" and "two mechanisms", namely, information platform for supervision work over school running of Chinese-foreign cooperation, which shall be on the basis of foreign-related education supervision information net, platform for authenticating the certificates issued by Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run schools, the mechanism for assessing quality of school running of Chinese-foreign cooperation which is built up in order to assess Chinese-foreign cooperative school-running quality in some selected provinces and cities according to different major subjects, and the law enforcement and penalty mechanism for Chinese-foreign cooperative school-running which is built up in order to reinforce the responsibilities of school-running entities and the administrative departments of various levels as required. For the purpose of doing a better job in the publicity of governmental affairs and information disclosure, this Ministry will gradually make public the list of approved Chinese-foreign cooperative educational institutions and programs and other related information. At the beginning of January 2007, information on some educational institutions and programs involving Chinese-foreign cooperation which undertake the higher diploma education of college level or higher has been publicly put on the website and the foreign-related education supervision information net of the Ministry of Education.

8.

The administrative education department, higher education institution in each region shall set forth and constitute the work plan of further regulating Chinese-foreign cooperation in school running, clean up and rectify the regulation-violating behaviors currently existing in school running of Chinese-foreign cooperation in a centralized way according to the spirit of the present Circular. They shall find out the real situation and carry out inspection on Chinese-foreign cooperation in school running in order to keep informed of the comprehensive situation, find out existing problems and rectify them properly and timely. The work plan and situation relating to cleaning up and rectification shall be timely reported to this Ministry.

This Ministry will supervise and inspect each region and each higher education institution for the implementation of the present Circular, and at a proper time organize an inspection team to supervise and inspect the implementation of the related work.

Ministry of Education

April 6, 2007