The Ministry of Education said it will continue to allow some joint Chinese-foreign learning institutions and programs to enroll Chinese students who are unable to study abroad next semester due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic is still raging around the world and many students are having difficulties studying abroad due to travel restrictions, the ministry said in a notice issued on Aug 25.

Seventy-two institutions and programs in 15 provincial-level regions have participated in the special enrollment, the ministry said.

The institutions and programs should conduct independent enrollment for the students and they will not be counted as part of the original enrollment quota of the universities.

In September last year, the ministry gave Sino-foreign cooperation programs and institutions the approval to enroll students who had been admitted to foreign universities but could not study abroad due to the pandemic.

The universities should conduct enrollment tests on the students and the enrollment requirement should not be lower than students in the same majors enrolled to study at foreign universities.

The students would only get degrees from foreign universities, but they could then get them accredited by the ministry's Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange, which would be important for finding jobs in China.

Liu Jin, director of the ministry's department of international cooperation and exchanges, said that 94 institutions and programs had enrolled 3,031 Chinese students in the category last year.

According to a notice issued by Communication University of China, its joint learning master's program with Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom will enroll 84 students this year.

They will study at CUC for the first year and at NTU for the second year and get a master's degree from NTU if they meet the university's requirements after two years of study, the notice said.