Study On The Legal Regulation Issue Of Representative Organizations Of Foreign Universities

After becoming an official WTO member,China has made horizontal commitments and sector commitments for its open-up of higher education sector.More and more foreign universities now come to China and open their representative organizations.However,after the study on the basic regulation system of Chinese higher education service sector open-up,the writer discovers that there is still blank for the market access and afterward regulation for setting-up representative organizations by foreign universities in China.During the investigation on current status of foreign universities representative organizations set-up and legal regulation on them,the writer also discovers that as there are no ready-made legal documents to follow,foreign universities often turn to other ways for representative organization set-up by registering as a Wholly-owned Foreign Enterprises or as a Rep Office of Foreign Enterprises.This practice leads to mismatch between the real identity of foreign universities representative organizations and their legal identity,results in regulation vacuum and leaves opportunities for unlawful actions in the study-abroad market.Therefore,the writer believes that it is improper to have no regulations or rules for foreign universities to follow for setting up their representative organizations,and specified regulations shall be drafted to fill the blank.The writer then makes the following suggestions:1.Based on the legal person categories regulated by China's General Principles of The Civil Law,by referring the legal entity of foreign universities,their representative organizations shall be classified into two categories:Rep Office for non-profit legal person foreign universities and Rep Office for for-profit legal person foreign universities.2.According to related educational laws and regulations and real practices in national education sector management,Ministry of Education shall be the unit for the centralized management and supervision on representative organizations of foreign universities in China.3.Referring to similar section regulations and rules,a specified regulation shall be drafted to stipulate in details that representative organizations of foreign universities with different legal identities shall be all included in the centralized registration,that all these representative organizations could only do market due diligence,roadshow,promotion and liaison activities relating to their university education service,that all these representative organizations shall follow Chinese laws and regulations and undertake legal responsibilities for their unlawful behavior,and receive administrative or criminal punishments based on the seriousness of their illegal behavior.