Branch Campus Counts and Form Distribution Across Five Jurisdictions: A 2023–2026 Baseline

Abstract

This report presents a baseline quantitative picture of transnational education (TNE) delivery across the five major host jurisdictions tracked by the shared TNEstudy programme registry: mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. All figures are computed directly from the shared programme registry (shared-data/tne-programmes/projects.jsonl), which holds 4,351 records as of the current rebuild. The registry is itself a derivative of the official jurisdiction registers listed in the sources; researchers requiring a final figure for publication should confirm against the most recent registry rebuild and, where precision is critical, against the source registers directly.

Programme counts by jurisdiction

The registry contains 4,351 records. Of these, 4,345 carry one of the five host-jurisdiction codes used in this report; the remaining 6 are Dubai free-zone records separately tagged AE-DXB, which fall inside the UAE frame and are folded into the UAE figure below.

1. Mainland China (CN) · 3,277 records · China’s approval-based Sino-foreign cooperative education system registers every lawfully-operating joint programme and joint institution. This is the largest single register in the dataset, reflecting both the scale of China’s market and the fact that approval is a precondition for lawful operation — so the register approximates the full population of approved activity.

2. Hong Kong (HK) · 723 records · The Non-local Courses Register under Cap. 493 captures non-local higher and professional education courses offered in Hong Kong. Entries are course-level, so a single foreign degree delivered through multiple local operators can generate several records.

3. Singapore (SG) · 317 records · The CPE/SSG PEI Course Directory captures courses offered by registered private education institutions, spanning sub-degree, degree and professional certificates.

4. Malaysia (MY) · 11 records · The Malaysian Qualifications Register (MQR) captures accredited programmes, including foreign branch campuses. The small count reflects the registry’s scope in this dataset rather than the full extent of Malaysian TNE activity captured elsewhere.

5. United Arab Emirates (AE) · 17 records under the AE code, plus 6 Dubai free-zone records tagged AE-DXB · The combined federal CAA register and Dubai KHDA directory capture institutions and programmes both onshore and in the Dubai free zones. Within the UAE frame the total is 23 records, concentrated in branch-campus form.

[Jurisdiction counts are not directly additive: a programme approved in more than one jurisdiction is listed under each. Counts are rounded to the registry’s own integer entries.]

Delivery forms across the five jurisdictions

The registry tracks four delivery forms. Their distribution across all 4,351 records is:

1. Joint programme (中外合作办学项目) · 2,790 records · The dominant form, almost entirely Chinese. It is the lightest to establish: approval attaches to one specific programme, so a second discipline requires a separate application in China.

2. Delivered award / cross-border delivery (跨境合作交付) · 1,040 records · A foreign qualification taught locally by a registered operator, with regulatory burden falling on the course rather than a physical campus. Dominant in Hong Kong (723) and Singapore (317).

3. Joint institution (中外合作办学机构) · 487 records · A standalone degree-awarding entity with its own governance, requiring Ministry of Education approval. Exclusive to China in this registry.

4. Branch campus (海外分校) · 34 records · A foreign institution’s own campus in the host jurisdiction. In this registry these appear in Malaysia (11), the UAE (AE 17 plus AE-DXB 6 = 23), and are absent from the China and Hong Kong registers — China’s framework does not permit wholly-owned foreign branch campuses, and Hong Kong records none.

Form by jurisdiction, in brief:

1. CN (3,277) · 2,790 joint programmes and 487 joint institutions; no delivered-award or branch-campus entries, consistent with the Sino-foreign cooperative framework.
2. HK (723) · 723 delivered awards; no branch campuses recorded.
3. SG (317) · 317 delivered awards; no branch campuses recorded in this dataset.
4. MY (11) · 11 branch campuses.
5. AE (23 within the UAE frame) · 23 branch campuses (17 AE + 6 AE-DXB).

Home-country flows

The 4,351 records involve awarding institutions from many home countries. The concentration is high; the leading home-country counts are:

1. United Kingdom · 1,117 records · The largest single source, present across all five host jurisdictions.
2. United States · 542 records · Strong in the UAE and China, present in Singapore and Hong Kong.
3. Australia · 393 records · Concentrated in Singapore, Malaysia and China.
4. Russia · 341 records · Prominent in the China register.
5. South Korea · 259 records.
6. Canada · 217 records.
7. Germany · 155 records.
8. France · 118 records.
9. New Zealand · 110 records.
10. Malaysia · 107 records · Acting as a home country for programmes recorded in other jurisdictions.
11. Italy · 96 records.

A further 623 records carry no recorded home-country value, concentrated in the delivered-award registers of Hong Kong and Singapore where the field is often left blank. The distribution reflects colonial and linguistic ties, geographic proximity, and the use of TNE as a student-recruitment and soft-power channel.

Data limitations

1. The registry counts registered programmes, not students, teaching activity or revenue. A jurisdiction with many small programmes can appear larger than one with fewer but larger ones.
2. Not all TNE activity is captured in public registers. Some delivered-award arrangements below registration thresholds may not appear; the extent of unregistered activity is unknown.
3. Register formats differ across jurisdictions. Direct count comparisons must account for what each register captures and how it categorises forms.
4. The registry is a snapshot, not a time series. This baseline reports counts as of the current rebuild; openings, closures and modifications require comparison across multiple rebuilds.
5. Dubai free-zone records are separately tagged (AE-DXB). They are folded into the UAE frame here, but a query filtering strictly on the ae code will under-count UAE branch-campus activity by 6.

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This report is compiled from the shared TNEstudy programme registry. The registry is rebuilt from official source registers on a regular schedule. All figures should be treated as approximate and verified against the current registry rebuild and the source registers before use in publication.