What must a Chinese university have to run an English-taught MBBS?

To enrol international students in English-taught undergraduate clinical medicine in mainland China, a university must meet the conditions in China's 2007 quality-control standard for that programme, published by the Ministry of Education of the PRC. Those conditions run from Article 23 to Article 28 and cover degree authority, teachers, facilities, library and clinical teaching base; Articles 12, 18, 19 and 30 add organisational and evaluation requirements. This page lists each condition by article; it does not state whether any school meets them. The English wording below is this site's translation of the Chinese text of the standard.

The Ministry's published list of schools and enrolment plans under this standard is covered on our recognised universities page.

Degree authority and affiliated hospital — Article 23

Article 23 of the standard requires a school to hold first-level discipline master's degree conferment authority in basic medicine and in clinical medicine, and at the same time to have a grade 3A (三级甲等) affiliated hospital.

Teachers and English teaching — Articles 24 and 25

Article 24 requires every discipline to have teachers who can teach in English and who can teach in English all the courses set by the teaching plan. Foreign teachers' teaching hours may not exceed 20% of total teaching hours, and each foreign teacher may teach no more than one core course. A foreign teacher must hold the degree level or corresponding professional title required by the discipline they teach; a foreign teacher of a clinical practice course must hold a licence or temporary licence to practise medicine in China. The employment of foreign teachers must comply with relevant state provisions.

Article 25 requires the school to have a strict teacher qualification review and teacher training-and-selection system. Teachers must be trained before taking up their posts on teaching ability, English level and knowledge of international-student policy, and may take up posts only after passing; the school must also create conditions for teachers' further study.

Offices, supervision and management — Articles 12, 18 and 19

Article 12 requires the school to have a dedicated functional body responsible for managing the medical international-student curriculum plan, planning and implementing the plan under the guidance of relevant school departments.

Article 18 requires the school to establish a curriculum-plan monitoring and evaluation mechanism and a teaching-quality supervision mechanism, and to establish an English-taught teaching supervision group to supervise curriculum implementation and international students' learning progress and to ensure problems are found and solved promptly.

Article 19 requires the school's teaching management department to formulate complete management rules and regulations, establish a dedicated organisation and assign appropriate personnel.

Facilities and library — Articles 26 and 27

Article 26 requires the school to have teaching facilities suited to the classroom teaching, tutorial discussion and laboratory classes of international-student teaching.

Article 27 states the school library should collect and preserve enough English reference textbooks and specialist materials to meet the needs of carrying out the teaching plan and of students' and teachers' research; the library should have staff to guide international students and provide computer search services.

Clinical teaching base — Article 28

Article 28 requires a clinical teaching base for international students' clinical teaching and internship. The clinical teaching base must be an affiliated hospital or a teaching hospital (a grade 3A hospital), and the ratio of beds the hospital provides for undergraduate international students' clinical teaching and internship to the number of international students should meet China's provisions for medical undergraduates.

Evaluation and the published list — Article 30

Article 30 states the Ministry of Education will entrust the National Expert Group for Medical (Western Medicine) Education for International Students to evaluate the teaching quality of schools running English-taught undergraduate medical education for international students, and will publish the list of schools that pass evaluation and their enrolment scale. A school not on the list may not enrol international students in English-taught undergraduate medical education. A school that applies to enrol such students, after evaluation and demonstration by the expert group and where it meets the conditions, will be included in the next year's list.

The Ministry's General Office applied this provision in notice 教外厅函〔2023〕10号, publishing the list of schools and enrolment plans for the 2023–2024 academic year. That notice covers the 2023–2024 academic year only; readers should confirm the current year's status with the university and the Ministry.

Sources

• Interim Provisions on Quality Control Standards for Undergraduate Medical Education in English for International Students (annex 1 to 教外来〔2007〕39号) — Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China
• Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Education on the 2023–2024 list of higher education institutions enrolling international students in English-taught undergraduate clinical medicine and their enrolment plan (教外厅函〔2023〕10号) — Ministry of Education of the PRC (General Office)

Checked 11 October 2026.

This page is an unofficial summary, is not legal or professional-licensing advice, is not published by the bodies named, promises no admission, examination or registration outcome, and the official text and the regulator's own instructions prevail if they differ.