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Following is a question by Dr Hon Helena Wong and a reply by the Secretary for Education, Mr Eddie Ng Hak-kim, in the Legislative Council today (February 3):
In December 2010, the University Grants Committee (UGC) submitted to the Government a report entitled "Aspirations for the Higher Education System in Hong Kong", advocating that institutions funded by UGC (funded institutions) should strengthen the elements of internationalisation. However, there are comments that internationalisation in various universities at present is unsatisfactory both in terms of quality and quantity, and there is even a trend of "Mainlandisation". On the other hand, the Chief Executive put forward in this year's Policy Address the proposal to inject $1 billion into the scholarship fund to increase the number of offers under the "Targeted Scholarship Scheme", currently 10 per year, by about 100 in phases, in order to attract more students from the "Belt and Road" countries to pursue university studies in Hong Kong. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) whether the authorities intend to confine the vision of "internationalisation" of funded institutions as advocated by UGC to covering the "Belt and Road" countries only; whether they have assessed the tangible benefits that can be brought to Hong Kong, the effects on promoting Hong Kong's economic development and the exchange benefits that can be brought to local university students, by supporting students from the "Belt and Road" countries to study in Hong Kong with public money; if they have assessed, of the outcome; whether the authorities have consulted UGC, various funded institutions, the Legislative Council and the public when formulating such a policy; if they have, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; of the key performance indicators of such policy;
(2) whether the Government's proposal of making an injection into the scholarship fund aims at broadening the international perspectives of local university students and, in particular, enhancing their understanding of the "Belt and Road" countries and promoting their exchanges with people from those countries; if so, why the Government does not change the use of the money earmarked for such injection to directly support local students to pursue studies in those countries, so as to groom more local talents with international perspectives; and
(3) given that quite a number of local students can only study self-financing post-secondary programmes due to a shortage of publicly-funded undergraduate places at present, and that under the free quality kindergarten education policy which the Government has recently decided to implement in the 2017/18 school year, full subsidies will not be provided for whole-day and long whole-day kindergartens, resulting in many parents still having to pay tuition fees, while the Government, on the other hand, plans to spend $1 billion to support students from the "Belt and Road" countries to study in Hong Kong, whether the authorities have assessed if this initiative is against the principle that the Government should accord priority to meeting the educational needs of local people; if they have assessed and the outcome is in the affirmative, of the Government's justifications for proposing the aforesaid injection arrangement; if the assessment outcome is in the negative, the justifications for that?
Reply:
President,
Hong Kong has all along been striving to become a regional education hub. Since 2008, we have introduced a series of measures to promote internationalisation of the higher education sector. These include subsidising Hong Kong students to go on exchanges and internships in various places around the world, supporting local students in pursuing studies in world renowned universities outside Hong Kong, and doubling the non-local student quota for publicly-funded programmes at the sub-degree, undergraduate and taught postgraduate levels to 20 per cent. Starting from the 2012/13 academic year, the Government set up a Targeted Scholarship Scheme (TSS) under the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government Scholarship Fund (Scholarship Fund) to offer up to 10 scholarships per year to students from the targeted regions (i.e. member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, India and Korea) to encourage them to pursue studies in Hong Kong.
In December last year, the Government announced the provision of 10 additional offers for students from Indonesia under the TSS starting from the 2016/17 academic year so as to attract outstanding students from Indonesia to pursue undergraduate studies in Hong Kong and facilitate academic exchanges and connection of the two places. Under this new scheme, namely, the Hong Kong Scholarship for ˇ§Belt and Roadˇ¨ Students (Indonesia), which forms part of the existing TSS, up to 10 scholarships will be offered to Indonesian students to cover their tuition fees, subject to a ceiling of $120,000 per student per annum. Thus, the expenditure involved for the first academic year will be at most $1.2 million. To encourage more outstanding students from countries and regions along the "Belt and Road" to pursue studies in Hong Kong, the Chief Executive proposed in the 2016 Policy Address to inject $1 billion into the Scholarship Fund and use the investment income thus generated to further increase the number of additional offers for the "Belt and Road" scholarship to 100 by phases.
With respect to Dr Hon Helena Wong's question, my reply is as follows:
(1) The "Belt and Road" regions cover many countries/regions spanning Asia, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. Encouraging more "Belt and Road" students to come to Hong Kong to pursue university study will help promote internationalisation of our institutions. Hong Kong is home to world-class universities which have the advantage of using English as the medium of instruction. This has all along been attracting students from all around the world. Recruiting non-local students for post-secondary programmes in Hong Kong will help diversify the local higher education sector and enhance the competitiveness of our students and Hong Kong as a whole. A multi-cultural learning environment, with students coming from other countries/regions, will help enhance cultural exchanges, broaden the horizons of the local students and help ensure that our graduates are globally competitive. While it is difficult to measure the abovementioned benefits by setting a rigid target, we believe that our drive to attract more students from all around the world, in particular outstanding students from the "Belt and Road" regions, to pursue studies in Hong Kong is the right direction. In the long run, it will help establish a platform for educational, cultural and youth exchanges between Hong Kong and the "Belt and Road" regions and bring benefits to Hong Kong. The Education Bureau (EDB) is now working on the details of the "Belt and Road" scholarship and will consult the Panel on Education of the Legislative Council in due course.
(2) A number of schemes have been put in place under the purview of EDB to provide support for Hong Kong students to go on exchanges and internships in various places around the world, including the "Belt and Road" regions. For instance, we have introduced a Scheme for Subsidy on Exchange for Post-secondary Students to subsidise local post-secondary students participating in learning experience and exchange activities outside Hong Kong. Since its launch in January 2015, the scheme has benefited almost 1 500 local post-secondary students and the amount involved is about $18 million. We have also subsidised local students, through the Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence Scheme, in pursuing studies in world renowned universities outside Hong Kong. Taking into account the 92 awardees of the first cohort of the scheme so far, the amount of subsidy involved is about $60 million. We take note of the view that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government may consider subsidising our students to pursue studies in the "Belt and Road" regions. EDB will give consideration to it.
(3) The HKSAR Government attaches great importance to nurturing talents and has been investing substantially to meet the educational needs of local students. In 2015-16, the revised estimate for recurrent expenditure on education is $71.4 billion, or 22 per cent of recurrent government expenditure. The estimate for post-secondary education is $19.5 billion, accounting for 27 per cent of the recurrent expenditure on education. In the 2014/15 academic year, over 8 000 students in total were offered scholarships and awards under the Scholarship Fund and the Self-financing Post-secondary Education Fund, and the total value of scholarships and awards amounted to about $170 million. The majority of the awardees were local students. In the same academic year, the Student Finance Office of the Working Family and Student Financial Assistance Agency spent over $3.6 billion of grants, loans for living expenses loans and non-means-tested loans to assist needy local students in pursuing local post-secondary studies, benefiting about 68 000 students.
With the development of the publicly-funded and self-financing post-secondary education sectors, 46 per cent of our young people in the relevant cohort had access to degree-level education in the 2014/15 academic year. Including sub-degree education, about 70 per cent of them had access to post-secondary education. At present, the number of University Grants Committee (UGC)-funded first-year first-degree places is 15 000 per annum. To provide diversified articulation pathways for our students, we are taking steps to progressively increase the number of UGC-funded senior year undergraduate intake places from 4 000 to 5 000 places per annum. In the 2018/19 academic year, 5 000 articulation places will be offered to meritorious sub-degree graduates per annum.
Finally, I wish to highlight that starting from the 2016/17 academic year, non-local students admitted to UGC-funded programmes at sub-degree, undergraduate and taught postgraduate level should only be counted outside the UGC-funded student number, and the number of non-local students to be admitted is capped at a level equivalent to 20 per cent of the approved UGC-funded student number. As an existing practice, institutions will process applications for admission from non-local students independently of those applications from local students. Thus, non-local students will not constitute direct competition with local students.
Ends/Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Issued at HKT 15:59
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