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Articles used in Assessment Three—Essay Writing
ARTICLE ONE
HK as an education center — an idea whose time has come
By Richard Cullen
The author is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Law, the University of Hong Kong.
October 21, 2024
https://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/
One crucial policy initiative outlined by Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee Ka-chiu, in
his latest annual Policy Address is the project to establish the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region as an international tertiary education hub.
Hong Kong tertiary institutions already attract many students from around the world and
especially from the Chinese mainland. It makes good sense to enhance this profile
substantially, based on long-term, systematic planning.
An apt place to look to see why this is so — but also to see how complex the challenges can
be — is Australia. It is presently the closest major education hub to China. And it has, overall,
enjoyed remarkable success in this regard.
Australia was well established as an international education hub over 30 years ago, drawing
most of its international-onshore students from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Singapore
and Malaysia. This education hub status has developed dramatically ever since,
notwithstanding a measurable, transient decline due to the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in
2020.
Australia, with a population of just under 27 million, has 42 universities. Australian
government figures show that almost 800,000 international students are presently studying at
universities and other educational institutions in Australia. Those same official figures show
how this translates into an additional annual income of around HK$190 billion ($24.45
billion). Education is Australia’s fourth-largest export earner. For the state of Victoria and for
Melbourne, its capital, it is the No 1 export earner.
Most international students come to Australia to attend universities. Still, substantial numbers
also arrive to study at various technical institutes and secondary schools, while others attend
short-term courses in English, for example.
Thus, Australia has accumulated a wealth of experience in operating as an international
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education hub. Accordingly, it has also witnessed various pivotal challenges that arise from
developing and maintaining this role. These include: safeguarding student welfare; ensuring
sufficient student accommodation; maintaining pertinent academic standards (especially in
the use of English); policing misuse of student visas; and cracking down on system-abuse by
certain education providers.
So, what are the sound lessons Hong Kong might learn from this experience?
First, it would be very smart to develop a detailed, initial 10-year plan focused on expected
long-term numbers; adequate tertiary institute resourcing; significant improvements in public
scholarship support programs; offshore joint-partner linkages; student accommodation; and
the policing of potential rogue operators and student visa abuse.
Providing student accommodation is a singular priority. Most international students in
Australia still rent accommodations in the private sector. Although there has been a major
increase in the private building of student accommodations close to tertiary institutions, the
market remains very tight, especially as international student numbers have surged again,
post-COVID-19.
In Hong Kong, the rental market is even tighter. Moreover, around 250,000 people still live in
subdivided units, and rehousing this huge number of disadvantaged fellow residents,
hopefully within the next decade, is paramount. (It is worth noting that, although this number
is genuinely alarming, in cities around the Global West, including in Australia, far more
similarly disadvantaged people are entirely homeless, regularly living on the streets.)
Having reviewed the long-term positive potential and specific serious challenges, let’s
examine some of Hong Kong’s unique “drawing card” aspects as an international education
hub.
First, with a population of around 7.5 million, we have a significant number of very good
tertiary institutions, including some excellent universities and a range of quality technical and
vocational colleges.
In the latest tables from the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Hong
Kong’s leading institution (the University of Hong Kong) ranked ahead of Australia’s
(Melbourne University) — which are within the top 50 worldwide. In general, the best Hong
Kong universities have been gradually advancing compared to Australia’s leading
universities, where funding is now tighter than before.
Next, Hong Kong is exceptionally well positioned to add value, over time, to China’s
remarkable Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by offering fresh educational opportunities, in
English, to well qualified applicants seeking both university education and technical and
vocational training. This BRI-sourced demand is surely set to increase significantly over the
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coming decades.
Then there is the essential fact that Hong Kong is one of the safest, most efficient big cities in
the world. It also enjoys an unmatched, glittering harborside essence, where steep green
mountains rise adjacent to the surrounding South China Sea.
Meanwhile, a substantial bonus resulting from Hong Kong’s world-class, affordable public
transport system is that student accommodation does not need to be campus-adjacent.
Adjacent locations are favored in Australia — where cities are less safe and public transport is
more thinly spread — in the interests of student well-being and convenience.
Finally, Hong Kong’s leading tertiary institutions already have excellent longstanding
cooperation agreements with universities and colleges worldwide. So it would be wise to plan
for partner-education programs, where new international students coming to Hong Kong
could be offered the embedded opportunity of spending a semester, at least, studying with a
partner institution in, for example, Australia or the United Kingdom.
Despite the dreary, ongoing Western media’s negative news blitz focused on Hong Kong,
people globally are progressively seeing through this fog of formulated misinformation. This
year we have seen a marked lift in Western academic experts keen to visit Hong Kong to
present and exchange views. And once they visit, almost all swiftly begin planning their next
trip.
Hong Kong remains a unique and marvelous place to live and study. The project to develop
the HKSAR as a leading international education hub is admirable. Doing this well will take
time and requires much thoughtful planning. The potential benefits, however, are substantial,
apparent and wide-ranging.
(The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.)
ARTICLE TWO
Self-financing tertiary institutions can help Hong Kong become global education
hub, bureau says
by William Yiu
Published on 24 Oct 2024
South China Morning Post p.12
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong
Self-financing tertiary institutions can play a more important role in helping Hong Kong
become a global postsecondary education hub, authorities have said, as the head of one such
body urged the government to relax the cap on non-local admissions to the same level that
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public universities enjoyed.
The Education Bureau said in a paper presented to the legislature on Wednesday that private
institutions had been bolstering the drive for the internationalisation of universities and their
number of non-local students had been consistently increasing.
“In this connection, the self-financing sector has the potential to play a more important role as
Hong Kong develops into an international postsecondary education hub,” the bureau said.
The government last year doubled the quota for non-local admissions at the city’s eight
publicly funded universities to 40 per cent of local student places, but a corresponding step
has yet to yet to be taken at self-financing institutions.
The latest data showed that the number of non-local students was 14 per cent of the total of
local students at the city’s self-financing institutions, but over 95 per cent of them were from
mainland China.
While self-financing institutions face a cap on the intake of students from the mainland,
Macau and Taiwan, no such restrictions are in place for the admission of students from other
places.
Three self-financing postsecondary institutions – Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Hong
Kong Shue Yan University and the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong – are required to
limit the number of students from the mainland, Macau and Taiwan to 20 per cent of total
enrolment.
The quota for the other three institutions – Hong Kong Chu Hai College, Tung Wah College
and the Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong under the Vocational
Training Council – is set at 10 per cent.
Sally Chan Wai-chi, president of Tung Wah College in Ho Man Tin, called on the government
on Thursday to raise the cap to 40 per cent, saying the self-financing sector was able to
accommodate more non-local students.
“The advantage of being self-financing is that we are flexible in offering study places. Raising
the cap on non-locals can help us contribute to turning Hong Kong into an international
education hub,” she said.
Her college has enrolled about 300 non-local students this academic year, putting it at the
maximum of the 10 per cent allowed.
Earlier government data showed that 22 self-financing institutions in Hong Kong admitted
about 4,300 non-local students in the last academic year, an increase over the 3,200 in 2021-
22, which represented 14 per cent of the total number of local students.
But while 95 per cent of the non-locals in the 2023-24 academic year were from the mainland,
less than 5 per cent were from elsewhere.
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Hong Kong Metropolitan University president Paul Lam Kwan-sing said last month he hoped
the government could relax the 20 per cent cap on the number of students from the mainland,
Macau and Taiwan as his institution was at 19 per cent.
“The percentage of non-local students has jumped from 14 per cent in one to two years,” he
said. “It is out of our expectation and we hope it will gradually increase.”
A government source earlier said authorities were seeking to raise the quota but no details
were given.
Chief Executive Lee Ka-chiu announced in his policy address last week that the government
would establish a “Study in Hong Kong” brand to help turn the city into an international
tertiary education hub. Authorities would also launch a pilot scheme in the first half of next
year to encourage the private sector to convert certain hotels and commercial buildings into
student hostels.
In its submission to the Legislative Council, the bureau acknowledged no universal definition
of “international education hub” existed, but it usually had several characteristics. The hubs
consisted of a cluster of higher education institutions with good standing, which had a high
degree of internationalisation as shown by the number, ratio and diverse origin of students
and staff members.
“Many countries and cities in the world have aspirations to become an education hub,” the
bureau said. “There is however no single formula for success which will work for all places.”
In the last school year, the number of mainlanders enrolled in undergraduate courses at public
universities stood at 10,358, accounting for about 70 per cent of all non-local students, with
the rest, 4,398, coming from elsewhere in the world.
A subcommittee in the legislature will meet next Monday to discuss the bureau’s policy
initiatives in building Hong Kong into an international tertiary education hub.
ARTICLE THREE
Hong Kong and Singapore: The Quest for Regional Education Hub Status
February 8, 2017
Joshua Mok Ka-ho
https://www.brinknews.com/
Singapore and Hong Kong have long aspired to be regional education hubs and have pursued
policies to that effect. However, changing socioeconomic contexts dictate flexible approaches,
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and how the two states respond to their economies’ evolving requirements will determine
their success.
Growing global interdependence within higher education has been recognized for decades,
usually seen as “international education” and having its primary manifestations in student and
faculty exchanges between countries. Over the last decade, especially after the General
Agreement on Trade in Services—which all members of the World Trade Organization are
signatories to—came into effect, higher education has been refined in part as a tradable
commodity, and the amount of “globalized education” is increasing.
With a strong intention to enhance the competitiveness of their higher education systems,
governments across the world, and especially those in Asia, have engaged in the quest to
achieve different forms of hub status such as hubs for education, talent and
knowledge/information.
As small states in the context of highly competitive knowledge-based economies, Singapore
and Hong Kong place particular emphasis on enhancing the quality of higher education for
their citizens, especially as improved research capacity and high quality talent will support
their standing in the globalizing economy. Nevertheless, it can take a long time for higher
education requirements to be fulfilled if only local universities are relied upon. Instead,
opening up the education market and allowing leading nonlocal institutions to offer programs
or run offshore campuses can act as a catalyst.
To meet its objective of becoming an education hub, the Singapore government has invited
foreign universities to set up local campuses and provide more higher education programs.
Similarly, the Hong Kong government also encourages overseas universities to offer different
kinds of higher education programs in Hong Kong to meet the pressing demand for higher
learning, given that the publicly funded universities still maintain a stringent quota of control
over student enrollments.
Similar Directions, Different Strategies
While Singapore and Hong Kong are leaders in higher education, the strategies and
approaches adopted by the two are different. Aspiring to become the Boston of the East, the
Singapore government launched the Global Schoolhouse project about two decades ago. It
provides well-articulated policy objectives and strategies by offering handsome packages
attracting leading universities/institutions from overseas to develop their campuses in the
country.
To assert Singapore’s regional leadership in higher education, the government carefully
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identifies major gaps and crucial disciplinary areas that Singapore lacks but will need for
future development. It then strategically invites world-renowned universities in those fields to
set up local programs or campuses. Areas of study that Singapore lagged behind in in the past
such as international business and finance, creative arts and culture, and liberal arts education,
have been strengthened through partnering and cobranding with leading global institutions.
Examples include programs with MIT and Yale universities and an INSEAD campus.
The Singapore government has played a strategic role from planning to implementation in the
regional education hub project, appropriately using resources and measures to achieve its
policy goals. It has played the role of “market generator,” not only in setting out the strategic
direction, but also by proactively orchestrating developments in transnational higher
education to meet its national agenda.
The future of Hong Kong and Singapore in education depends on how they adapt to changing
socioeconomic contexts.
Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government has been far more committed to free market
principles and has taken a hands-off approach, performing the role of market facilitator. Its
government has just set out the macro policy direction aspiring to become a regional
education hub. However, concrete measures have not been rolled out by the government to
achieve such a policy objective. The government believes in the importance of institutional
autonomy and academic freedom for universities to run their business and they encourage
universities to identify areas and overseas partners to provide programs that could fill the gap
and help strengthen Hong Kong’s leadership role in transnational higher education.
Making particular reference to Singapore and Malaysia, critical reviews of the regional
education hub project in Hong Kong have revealed no major overseas universities setting up
major offshore campuses in the city-state with only a few exceptions, such as the University
of Chicago Booth School of Business. Compared to Singapore, and even Malaysia (which has
a similar regional education hub project), the project in Hong Kong is more unorganized in
terms of comprehensive planning and concrete strategies.
Challenges Ahead
After roughly two decades of experiencing and adjusting to the rapid development of
transnational higher education, Singapore and Hong Kong may now have to adopt somewhat
different approaches toward one of midlevel state involvement. On the one hand, we may see
lesser state intervention in Singapore, and on the other, greater state intervention in Hong
Kong may be warranted.
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Singapore may need to reduce the state’s role to maintain the vitality and efficiency of its
transnational higher education sector. Indeed, in Singapore’s case, there are signs this is
already happening. But the Hong Kong government may have to wield its state capacity more
proactively in industrializing the sector, so as to make it more conducive to the territory’s
economic needs.
The hub projects in these city-states can face challenges when local and regional educational
needs start fluctuating. The success and sustainability of these hub projects, for example,
depend heavily on the changing political economy context.
In recent times, the Singapore government has faced the dilemma of balancing its Global
Schoolhouse aspirations against locals’ complaints of heightened competition for positions at
educational institutions. At the same time, Singapore has made policy adjustments not only to
the education hub project but also immigration policy, using the education hub project as a
policy instrument for the attraction and retention of talent and to supplement its working
population. As such, there are different push and pull factors influencing policies relating to
the education sector. For example, there were 50,000 foreign students in Singapore in 2002,
and while Singapore aimed to draw 150,000 students by 2015, and the number did increase to
97,000 by 2008, it started declining thereafter to reach 75,000 as of September 2014.
Hong Kong, meanwhile, has not given the education hub project such high prominence in its
recent policy agendas, especially as the government has placed greater emphasis on meeting
its citizens’ housing needs. In fact, recognizing the shortage of land for housing, the
government has determined to use land—originally planned for attracting overseas
institutions to offer transnational higher education learning in the city-state—as venues for
public and/or private housing estates. The hub project has therefore been scaled back,
especially as Hong Kong has also experienced a decline in its youth population.
More recently, because students from mainland China—one of the primary sources of foreign
students—also have plenty of other options for overseas studies, coupled with challenges
related to integrating local and nonlocal students in the city, the government’s push of the
education hub project is slowing down.
The future of these two city-states in the global education sector continues to be promising,
but only time will tell how well they adapt to the changing circumstances that will influence
policies relating to the education sector. How they address these challenges will determine
their prospects as regional or even global education hubs in the years to come, and will also
have a broader impact on their respective knowledge economies.
