Four joint university programs penalized for over-enrollment

Four programs jointly run by Chinese and foreign universities were punished by the Ministry of Education for admitting students beyond the enrollment scale, according to a notice on Tuesday on the website of the Education Ministry.

The four programs, based in Tianjin University of Technology, Henan University of Technology, Jilin University of Finance and Economics and Heilongjiang's Heihe University, were asked to reduce the number of students they will recruit or even stop recruiting.

The problems of these programs were found in the nationwide evaluation and appraisement of programs jointly run by Chinese and foreign universities. The inspection was launched by the Education Ministry in early 2013, in hopes of examining and improving the teaching quality and standards of the programs cooperatively run by universities here and abroad.

The notice said a total of 346 institutions and programs were examined, and 83 percent of them were qualified.