How this archive is compiled

Data sources

The programme registry underlying this archive's quantitative claims is drawn from the following official registers, accessed on a regular update cycle:

1. Ministry of Education, China · 教育部中外合作办学监管工作信息平台 — the official register of Sino-foreign cooperative education programmes and institutions approved by the Chinese government.
2. Education Bureau, Hong Kong · 非本地高等及專業教育課程註冊紀錄冊 — the register of non-local higher and professional education courses under the Non-local Higher and Professional Education (Regulation) Ordinance (Cap. 493).
3. SkillsFuture Singapore / CPE · PEI Course Directory — the register of courses offered by Council for Private Education-registered private education institutions.
4. Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) · Malaysian Qualifications Register (MQR) — the national register of accredited programmes.
5. Commission for Academic Accreditation (CAA), UAE · Register of licensed institutions and accredited programmes.
6. Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), Dubai · Higher Education Directory — the register of institutions and programmes in Dubai's free zones.

As of the most recent data refresh, the programme registry contains 4,351 records spanning 5 host jurisdictions, with awarding institutions from 49 home countries.

Update cadence

The programme registry is rebuilt from the source registers on a regular schedule. The date of the most recent rebuild is recorded in the registry metadata. Researchers relying on specific programme counts for publication should check the registry date and, where precision is critical, confirm directly against the source register.

Verification standard

Every factual claim in the archive carries a source annotation. Our verification standard is as follows:

1. Confirmed from official source · The datum has been located in the relevant official register, agency publication or legislative instrument and verified against the current version.
2. Confirmed from contemporaneous reporting · The datum is drawn from a contemporaneous news report, institutional press release or regulatory announcement that provides sufficient detail to be treated as a reliable secondary source. These entries carry an explicit note identifying the secondary source and, where possible, the official source that should be consulted for primary verification.
3. Unable to confirm from official source · The datum could not be located in an accessible official source at the time of compilation. This is stated explicitly in the entry, and the claim is flagged for researcher verification. The archive does not suppress gaps; it documents them.

Known limitations

Researchers should be aware of the following structural limitations of the archive:

1. Register coverage is not uniform. Each host jurisdiction maintains its register differently. Some registers capture all TNE activity (Singapore's PEI Course Directory); others capture only approved or accredited programmes (China's Sino-foreign register); some are confined to specific emirates or free zones (Dubai's KHDA directory vs. the federal CAA register). The programme count for any given jurisdiction should be read with this scope difference in mind.
2. Register currency varies. The lag between a programme's approval, its appearance on the register, and its reflection in our data rebuild depends on both the source register's update frequency and our rebuild schedule. For time-sensitive enquiries (e.g., whether a specific programme is currently approved), the source register should be consulted directly.
3. Case studies are reconstructions, not contemporaneous records. The exit and failure case studies are compiled from multiple sources after the event. They aim for accuracy but are not primary historical documents. Researchers should treat them as structured bibliographies that point to the primary sources, not as substitutes for those sources.
4. No approval timelines or success rates. No jurisdiction publishes data on how long it takes to obtain approval for a TNE programme, how many applications are submitted, or what proportion succeed. This archive does not estimate these figures. The absence of this data is part of the story.

Attribution

This archive is maintained by UNILINK Education Pty Ltd. The methodology described here reflects UNILINK's research practices. The data layer is shared with tnestudy.com — the institutional services face of TNEstudy — but the editorial framing and archival entries are specific to this site.