Quality assurance is high on the agendas of both China and the UK, especially in the area of trans-national education. The UK is seen as a key partner for China in higher education quality assessment and leadership and there are a number of on-going bi-lateral collaborative programmes in place.

As China has been carrying out pilot evaluations of joint educational institutional programmes, the British Council has actively taken part in the evaluation process. For example, a Chinese delegation travelled to the UK in March 2009 to visit two universities and to deliver a workshop on the China policy on trans-national education. Following that visit and under British Council facilitation, Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) and China Academic Degree and Graduate Development Centre (CDGDC) signed a Memorandum of Agreement (bilingual) in 2010. The British Council and these two organisations are working to deliver in 2012 the final agreement in the memorandum that of the collaboration of review on Sino-UK joint schools and programmes.