Bureau recognises role of self-financing tertiary sector

Self-financing tertiary institutions can play a more important role in helping Hong Kong become a global post-secondary 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 public universities enjoyed, writes William Yiu for South China Morning Post.

The Education Bureau said in a paper presented to the legislature on Wednesday 23 October 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 post-secondary 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% of local student places, but a corresponding step has yet to be taken at self-financing institutions. 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%, saying the self-financing sector was able to accommodate more non-local students.
Full report on the SCMP site