CHINA-HONG KONG: Thorny issues of higher education ties

One of the little-publicised sections of China's economic plan for the next five years includes Hong Kong for the first time since the former British colony's handover to China in 1997. However, Hong Kong and southern China have already been forging higher education ties with a view to creating a common higher education space in the not-too distant future.

"For the first time Hong Kong is included in China's latest five year plan, giving us a strategic role in the development of the Pearl River Delta," Tony Chan, President of Hong Kong's University of Science and Technology, told a conference in Hong Kong in March.

He was referring to the southern region of China around the Pearl River, which has been at the vanguard of China's rapid industrialisation since the 1980s.

"This means more opportunities for our staff and students in internships, sharing of labs and resources, maybe even access to mainland [Chinese] state funding," Chan said.

But full cross-border integration of higher education is still some way off and will not be trouble-free, experts said, with Hong Kong's long-standing traditions of university autonomy and academic freedom likely to clash with mainland China's party-controlled administration of universities.

Chan himself described the higher education relationship as "both an opportunity and a challenge." He told University World News: "China wants the world to come to China and partner in research and at undergraduate level. It wants to collaborate with the best in the world, but China has a lot of historical baggage and its [higher education] system is not open.

"We will need to resolve issues caused by different traditions and management in higher education," Chan said.

During its annual session in Beijing from 7-14 March, the National People's Congress - China's one-party parliament - officially approved an agreement between China's Southern Guangdong province and Hong Kong to cooperate across the border as a 'world class' economic region.

Under the agreement Hong Kong can jointly set up higher education institutions in the Pearl River Delta with local partners, establish research bases, conduct engineering research and operate joint labs with industries in Guangdong, to include technology parks.

Premier Wen Jiabao told a press conference afterwards: "I believe it is also important for Hong Kong to pay close attention to the development of education and science and technology so as to sustain the momentum of development".

Projects are already underway. In 2009 Hong Kong universities and other organisations were given the green light to set up wholly-owned branches on the mainland providing research and laboratory services in science and engineering, though restrictions still apply in offering undergraduate and postgraduate taught courses.

A rush of plans followed and the pace of implementation has been swift.

Hong Kong University has said it will build an "extension" in Shenzhen within five years and, with support from the Shenzhen government, it will help run a new 2,000-bed hospital and medical school and a medical research centre. Significantly, however, Vice-chancellor Tsui Lap-Chee does not refer to the Shenzhen project as a Hong Kong branch campus - that is still some way off.

Hong Kong Chinese University (HKCU) announced this year that it would establish a second facility in Shenzhen, with a target enrolment of around 7,000 students in 2013.

HKUST also has a research institute in Shenzhen, another research unit in Zhejiang, and it is involved in China's Nansha IT science park. It also runs MBA courses in Beijing, an indication that the links are not simply at the provincial level.

Hong Kong's City University officially opened a huge state-of-the-art research facility in Shenzhen in January, though research collaboration with the mainland has been ongoing for almost 10 years.

"We have developed a close relationship with the mainland government and tertiary education and industry. China wants to learn from Hong Kong," said Kevin Downing of City University. "Higher education authorities in China recognise they are good in some things while in others they have along way to go. They want to deal with that."

Meanwhile, another four institutions, or possibly a new university, could be built at Lok Ma Chau, an area originally in China but administered by Hong Kong after China's Shenzhen River, which formed the border, was straightened in the 1990s, leaving the area within Hong Kong's boundaries. Hong Kong has announced it is looking into developing the area into a higher education, science and creative industries hub.

Several university administrators in Hong Kong said limited space for campus expansion in densely packed Hong Kong is driving expansion in China, with Shenzhen only 25 to 30 minutes from Hong Kong on the train and willing to be a test-bed for collaboration.

But academics see funding as a bigger motive. "Our aim is resources [in the] longer term," said Chan.

Although Hong Kong researchers cannot yet access funding from China, it is not lost on them that mainland universities receive a great deal more research funding nationally and from provincial governments than is available in Hong Kong.

With China's huge science and technology budget aiming to be over 2.2% of gross domestic product compared to around 1.6% now, the resources becoming available "may even be more than the US," Chan told University World News. "Some say China has too much money."

On the other hand Hong Kong, with a population of around seven million, is too small to have a flourishing research sector that covers many disciplines. "Hong Kong does not have the capacity to undertake major research projects, for example, a space programme. Our mainland partners offer a scale that is unavailable locally," Chan said.

Mainland China provides resources and scale while Hong Kong has the skills and some of the best laboratories in Asia, which swiftly detected and dealt with the SARS virus outbreak in 2002-03, something that was not lost on China.

"Research collaboration is easier - there are more incentives and less control," Chan said.

But particularly in the social sciences and mumanities, which are strong in Hong Kong, the difference in academic culture could hamper cross-border collaboration, preventing moves towards fully-fledged integration.

Vice-chancellor of HKCU Joseph Sung told local media that a prerequisite of his university's expansion into China was academic freedom. But it is far from clear how that will be guaranteed.

Meanwhile under China's national higher education law, foreign institutions are junior members of ventures with local institutions exercising overall control.

Some suggest that rather than China learning from Hong Kong's higher education system, Hong Kong institutions may be forced into doing things the mainland way, with possible consequences not just for Hong Kong academic freedom, but also the world standing of its own highly rated universities.

"In Hong Kong we have safeguards. It is up to individual researchers to do the right thing while in China. If they [Hong Kong academics] come under pressure, it would be best for them to do the right thing by their universities," said Downing.

Questions also arise over whether Hong Kong's reputation for quality education might be jeopardised.

"We ensure the same standards that we apply at City University are applied there," said Downing, who is senior coordinator of academic planning and quality assurance at City University and has carried out audits of the university's facilities in China, sometimes arriving unannounced.

It may be a delicate balancing act. But he believes Hong Kong is uniquely placed to walk the tightrope. "Maybe Hong Kong's role is to bridge that culture gap between institutions from the West and China - we are the trailblazers," Downing said.

And despite the problems, Hong Kong appears to have its ambitions firmly set on a presence on the mainland.

"We want to produce leaders for the whole region, including for the big enterprises in China - they could be our graduates," Chan said. "By helping to train the next generation of Chinese leaders, Hong Kong is exerting and extending its influence on the mainland."

And for some, eventual integration is inevitable. "Long term, Hong Kong and China are one country," said Downing.

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