China's Ministry of Education on Wednesday promised to improve the standard of its bachelor degree courses in pharmacy that universities offer to foreign students.
Some Chinese colleges have begun to offer degree programs in English to prospective pharmacists from overseas to meet surging demand.
However, the standard of teaching is low.
"Some colleges have only expanded the enrolment of foreign students for their own economic benefits without improving their teaching methods, and some have even lowered the requirements for acceptance onto the courses and never check the candidates' competence in English," said a ministry statement.
"This kind of behavior has damaged the reputation of China's higher education establishments and should be controlled," the statement said.
The statement said schools that receive foreign students for degree programs in pharmaceutical studies should set up special departments to draw up teaching plans, supervise and evaluate the teaching quality.
Courses given in English should receive particularly stringent supervision and colleges should be stricter in enrollment, it said.
Foreign citizens who would apply for the courses in English should have senior middle school certificates or above and relatively high communication skills in English, it stipulated.
The ministry said it had set up a team of experts which would examine the schools and courses every year and decide how many students the school should enroll next year.
For the coming school year, the expert team has announced 30 schools qualified to give pharmacy courses in English on the MOE Web site.
Source: Xinhua
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