TNE — transnational education · operator desk
Every regulator has published the rules. Nobody has walked the route.
Five host jurisdictions publish their requirements for foreign providers in five different languages, under five different names, and none of them cross-reference the others. This desk restates them as one comparable entry path — and shows who has already made the crossing.
- 2,230
- registry records held
- 7
- jurisdictions mapped
- 1,504
- awarding institutions
- 24
- home countries represented
Preliminary entry summary
Five questions, then a route map
Point and click. No form fields until there is something worth sending.
Your preliminary entry summary
Built from the official registers and instruments held on this site.
Where delivery actually happens
The market, counted rather than described
Each number below comes from the official register named beside it. Where a register does not publish a field, we leave it out rather than estimate it.
Mainland China
Approval of a Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run school or programme (Permit for Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools)
- records
- 1,156
- Arrangements on the register
- Joint programme · Joint institution
- Regulators
- MOE · Information Platform for Supervision of Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Running Schools
教育部中外合作办学监管工作信息平台
Open jurisdiction →Hong Kong SAR
Registration or exemption of a regulated non-local course
- records
- 723
- Arrangements on the register
- Delivered award
- Regulators
- EDB · HKCAAVQ
香港教育局 非本地高等及專業教育課程註冊紀錄冊
Open jurisdiction →Singapore
Registration under the Enhanced Registration Framework, plus the EduTrust Certification Scheme
- records
- 317
- Arrangements on the register
- Delivered award
- Regulators
- SSG · MOE
SkillsFuture Singapore / CPE — PEI Course Directory
Open jurisdiction →Malaysia
Establishment approval and registration under the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996, with MQA accreditation and listing on the Malaysian Qualifications Register
- records
- 11
- Arrangements on the register
- Branch campus
- Regulators
- MQA · JPT / MOHE
Malaysian Qualifications Register (MQR)
Open jurisdiction →United Arab Emirates
Institutional licensure and programme accreditation (CAA, federal); Higher Education Permit (KHDA, Dubai); Higher Education Authorization (ADEK, Abu Dhabi)
- records
- 23
- Arrangements on the register
- Branch campus
- Regulators
- CAA · KHDA · ADEK
UAE CAA — Commission for Academic Accreditation
Open jurisdiction →United Kingdom · Australia
Not an inbound approval regime — obligations arise from OfS conditions of registration
- United Kingdom No separate approval to deliver abroad. Responsibility travels with the awarding body: registration conditions apply to provision made by, or on behalf of, the provider, wherever it is delivered.
- Australia Offshore delivery is separately authorised. A provider must hold an authorisation under Part 3A of the TEQSA Act before conferring Australian awards for courses delivered at offshore premises.
Four ways in
The form you choose decides which regulator you answer to
A branch campus, a franchised programme and a validated award are not variations of one arrangement — they sit under different legal instruments and different approval bodies. Pick the wrong one early and the approval path changes underneath you.
-
Branch campus
You hold the premises and the licence. Two regulators are in play at once: the host authority that licenses the campus, and your home regulator, whose obligations follow you offshore.
-
Joint institution
A standing entity co-established with a local institution. The heaviest approval load of the four, and the hardest to unwind — but it is the form that carries its own enrolment identity.
-
Joint programme
One approved award, run inside a local partner's existing licence. Lighter to establish than an institution, but the approval attaches to that specific programme — a second discipline means a second application.
-
Delivered award
Your award, taught locally by a registered operator. Regulation attaches to the course and its advertising rather than to a campus — which is why this form dominates the registers in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Who is already delivering
Sending institutions, by home system
Counted from the host registers, not from provider marketing.
- United Kingdom 834 HK 586 CN 238 AE 5 MY 5
- United States 299 CN 265 HK 31 AE 3
- Australia 148 CN 100 HK 40 AE 4 MY 4
- Russia 88 CN 87 AE 1
- South Korea 69 CN 69
- France 66 CN 60 AE 3 HK 3
How to read this
What we will not tell you
No regulator in any of these jurisdictions publishes an approval timeline, a fee schedule or an approval rate. So this site does not state one. Where a claim would need a number we cannot source, you will find the gap named instead of filled.
Every regulator name, instrument title and register link on this site carries the date we last checked it against the official source. When we could not confirm something — a branch-campus regime in a jurisdiction that may not have one, a country field a register simply does not collect — the page says so.
- Checked against official sources on
- 2026-07-28
- Registers
- KHDA Higher Education Directory（迪拜） · Malaysian Qualifications Register (MQR) · SkillsFuture Singapore / CPE — PEI Course Directory · UAE CAA — Commission for Academic Accreditation · 教育部中外合作办学监管工作信息平台 · 香港教育局 非本地高等及專業教育課程註冊紀錄冊