****************************************************
Following is a question by the Hon Emily Lau and a reply by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Professor Arthur K C Li, in the Legislative Council today (March 14):
Question:
It has been reported that a professor of the Hong Kong Baptist University claims that a senior official from the Education and Manpower Bureau ("EMB") has attempted to interfere in matters relating to the university's award of honorary doctorates by requesting the Council chairman of the university to remove a person's name from the list of recipients concerned, but the request was turned down. It has also been reported that according to the senior management of the Lingnan University, similar incidents have occurred in their university too. In this connection, will the Executive Authorities inform this Council whether:
(a) they know the criteria adopted by publicly-funded universities for determining the recipients of honorary doctorates; and
(b) EMB officials had, in the past three years, expressed views to universities on matters relating to the award of honorary doctorates; if so, of the details concerned and the reasons for expressing such views?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) The University Grants Committee (UGC)-funded institutions are autonomous bodies governed by their own ordinances. These governing ordinances empower the institutions to confer degrees and academic awards (including honorary degrees and honorary awards). Institutions can draw up their own procedures and criteria for conferring honorary degrees in accordance with their relevant ordinances.
In general, institutions will take into account various factors in considering the conferment of honorary degrees, including the candidates¡¦ contributions to the development of the concerned institution, the academic sector, and the community at large.
(b) In the past three years, there was only one occasion on which the Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) had expressed views to UGC-funded institutions on matters regarding the award of honorary degrees. In 2005, the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) submitted five nominations for the award of honorary degrees to the former Chief Executive (as Chancellor of HKBU) for consideration. As the former Vice Chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I understand that there was a gentlemen's agreement among the Vice Chancellors and Presidents of the UGC-funded institutions that institutions would award honorary degrees to not more than four persons each year unless there were special occasions such as celebration of anniversaries. In the light of this, EMB had raised the gentlemen's agreement with HKBU for the University's reference, to facilitate its consideration of the nominations for honorary degrees. EMB has no intention whatsoever to interfere with the institutional autonomy of HKBU or any other UGC-funded institutions.
Let me now quote our letter to the Council Secretary of HKBU dated February 28, 2005:-
"It is our understanding that UGC-funded institutions have agreed among themselves to keep the number of honorary degree recipients to a maximum of four each year in normal circumstances. In the light of this, I wonder if your University would wish to give further thought to its nominations."
A polite letter providing information for HKBU's reference can in no way be interpreted as interference. Moreover, HKBU confirmed in their reply at the time that they wished to confer honorary degrees to five people that year, and so five people were duly awarded.
Indeed, when this matter was revived and reported in the press recently, HKBU published the following statement on February 9 refuting the claim that there had been interference from the Education and Manpower Bureau in this regard. Extracts are as follows:
"In response to some media reports today regarding alleged interference in the selection process of honorary degree recipients, Hong Kong Baptist University declared that such reports were groundless and untrue."
Thank you, Madam President.
Ends/Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Issued at HKT 14:27
NNNN
