Peking University to start enrollment for Oxford campus

Peking University is set to start staff recruitment and student enrollment for its British campus in the city of Oxford in June.

The elite university in Beijing signed with the Open University in February to purchase a 15-acre campus in Oxford for 8.8 million pounds, or 10 million U.S. dollars. The location will serve as an overseas campus for the university's HSBC Business School.

The school will enroll 100 international students when it opens in August 2018, coinciding with the 120th anniversary of Peking University.

This is the first time that a Chinese university has used its own finances to set up and manage a school in a foreign country.

Yu Changjiang, a scholar in education, described the move as a remarkable step for China's higher education to go global.

"Previously HSBC Business School has been recruiting teaching staff and introducing resources from abroad, but now it has begun its process of going global, thus forming bilateral exchanges between its foreign counterparts," said Yu, "this will actually become a major tendency for China's higher education industry, which will gradually develop its own characteristics and advantages to be shared internationally."

HSBC Business School's finance, management and economic courses will feature Chinese business cases to help students become better acquainted with the Chinese economy and reforms.

Students will take the first year course in the Oxford campus and the second year at the schools' campus in Shenzhen.

Those on the campus in the southern Chinese city will also be allowed to select elective courses on the campus in Oxford.