A
paper on the background to the admission of non-local students
(A) In May 1993, the (then) Executive Council
of the government approved recommendations of the (then) University and
Polytechnic Grants Committee relating to the admissions of non-local students. It was agreed, among other things, that, on
educational grounds, the Hong Kong institutions should be encouraged to enroll
some non-local students as
(a) non-local students
enrich the student community as a whole by broadening the education experience
and perspective of local students, providing opportunities to enhance their
communication skills and facilitating cultural interactions; and
(b) non-local students
help the Hong Kong institutions maintain their status as international
institutions and contribute towards the ability of Hong Kong graduates to
function effectively as members of a community with an international outlook.
(B) The HKU Senate at a meeting in November
1993 specifically agreed
(a) that the presence of
non-local students would enrich the student community, and would also help the
University strengthen its links with overseas institutions and maintain its
image as an international university; and
(b) that Hong Kong, a
city much better off economically than many of its neighboring countries,
should provide aid and support to the less prosperous countries, and that
admission by the University of students from such countries and providing them
with tertiary education was one of the means of doing so.
(C) HKU admitted its first students from the
Mainland in 1999, and its first students from the rest of the world in the
middle of the following decade. Both of these followed approval of appropriate
conditions by relevant governments and government departments. Since then,
applications from these two areas have increased enormously, with the Mainland
UG applications asymptoting around 12,000 p.a. and overseas applications
similarly growing year on year by 20% or more (currently around 5,000 p.a.). The recruitment of non-local students has led
to the visibility and reputation of HKU increasing substantially around the
world, but particularly in Asia. The actual enrolment of such students has also
significantly contributed to the current rankings of HKU (in the QS Asia
rankings, for example, HKU scores nearly 100% for its international students).
(D) In 2012, UGC held dialogues, and exchanged
views, with institutions on internationalization and engagement with Mainland
China. In its “Report of the Strategic
Dialogues on Internationalization and Engagement with Mainland China”, UGC
summarized the views about the admission of non-local students, as follows
“The admission of non-local students has multiple benefits. It could
(a) enable Hong Kong
institutions to take full advantage of our niche to become eminent
international universities within China;
(b) benefit local
students and the Hong Kong community at large;
(c) introduce different
cultures and learning experiences to local students;
(d) bring in high-quality
students;
(e) help institutions
build reputation worldwide;
(f) support the use of
English as a medium of instruction;
(g) help build links
with overseas communities; and
(h) better the career
prospects of local students.
Different learning styles of non-local students also serve as good
stimulation to local students who are more accustomed to a more passive style
of learning.”
(E) The following are existing policies on
the admission of non-local students:
Undergraduate Students
(a) Government policy (to
be followed by all institutions) : Institutions
can admit non-local students up to 20% of their total intake-quota, with 4%
counted against the intake quota, and the remaining numbers not counted against
the intake quota (and for which therefore there is no government funding).
(b) University goals : Each
year, our goal is to admit 50% of the non-local UG students from Mainland
China, and 50% from other parts of the world, and to have as diverse a group of
non-local students from as possible, whilst maintaining the highest academic
standards.
Postgraduate Students
There is no specific policy of the government or the University on
the admission of non-local students to Tps or Rpg programmes. Admission is always on academic merits basis. There could be special admissions requirements,
such as professional experience, but nationality is not a criterion for
admission to any of the University postgraduate programmes.
(F) The following is a somewhat extended
summary of the advantages of internationalizing the student population at HKU,
extracted from a paper presented to the HUCOM (Heads of Universities Committee)
Standing Committee on Internationalization (HUCOMSCI). It breaks down the value of
internationalizing the campus by different levels.
Individual level
(a)
Knowledge per se (of different
cultures, attitudes etc., and the self-evaluation of one’s own culture,
attitudes, behaviours and belief systems that results from this).
(b)
The applied value of such an
understanding, for example, with respect to helping to minimize conflict amongst
different races, cultures, religions.
(c)
Competing internationally for
jobs: perceptions. Hong Kong graduates must understand the increasing
competition worldwide (subcontinent and beyond). There are millions of
graduates in, for example, economics every year. Many of these, with the
increasing mobility of today’s world, could be applying for local jobs.
(d)
Competing internationally for
jobs: skills. They must, as a result, equip themselves with the skills required
in this new globally competitive age, in order to be competitive with other graduates
from around the globe. How do Hong Kong’s graduates fare in this globally
competitive market? How will they be chosen by the top companies? The
“internationalization” skills required by many are sometimes referred to as
“global competencies”. Examples from the literature of such global competencies
are:
Global mind-set, meaning,
the ability to manage:
o
Multicultural teams
o
Personal and organizational learning
o
Uncertainty and chaos
o
Organizational adaptability
o
Complexity
o
Competitiveness
o
Global vision
o
Cultural empathy
o
Interpersonal expertise
o
Global negotiating skills
o
Global ethics and integrity
o
Ability to help globalise a firm
(e)
Similarly, Hong Kong graduates
will increasingly be considering jobs elsewhere in the world, and must be
suitably equipped for this, in terms of understanding that foreign culture.
(f)
In summary, graduates today from Hong Kong,
as from anywhere in the world, need an upbringing and education that will help
them to personally develop a better understanding of business and other career
opportunities. In today’s “flat-earth”, where competition between many
countries exists because of the internet and ease of world travel, graduates
must understand other cultures and practices to successfully join this
competition. Even graduates moving into multinational or, indeed, any
organizations locally need an understanding of the business practices of
different cultures, races, religions and nationalities. An internationalized
education can be gained from spending time studying abroad, or by having an
international experience in a Hong Kong institution (with international
students, international activities etc.).
(g)
Other than students, there may
be significant staff benefits from the internationalization of education,
occurring through benchmarking on issues of practice (e.g. developments in
teaching, laboratory equipment, ICT), through more cultural understanding
stemming from sabbaticals and joint research with overseas institutions, which
can flow into teaching.
Institutional level
(a)
Competition is now global not
local. This is true of all universities, not just those emphasizing research. Top
students, for example, can choose between a Hong Kong university and a leading
American, Australian or British university. This is the competition now. Students
favouring a liberal arts education have alternatives abroad. Students going
into an associate degree programme have many top-up degree routes with overseas
universities. This competition can be seen to help drive innovation and
development.
(b)
International recruitment
increases the quality of students by drawing from a wider body.
(c)
For some universities, there
may be increased revenue from international recruitment (especially the
Australian and British universities).
(d)
Branding – universities are
ranked, to a significant extent, by how well they are known internationally. Hong
Kong universities need linkages to universities abroad (teaching and learning
programmes, research, projects).
(e)
The rankings that do not depend
entirely on research statistics use the number of non-local students as a
parameter in compiling their rankings of universities.
(f)
Benchmarking – International
collaboration and linkages allow Hong Kong universities to benchmark themselves
against other leading universities around the world, which itself is a form of
quality assurance.
(g)
Sharing – the links also allow
local institutions to share and follow the good practices of the overseas
institutions, leading to quality improvement, as all as to showcase our own
good practices for others to consider.
(h)
Research collaboration – local
collaboration in Hong Kong does not allow the depth of breadth of research to
develop, because of our size. It is
critical to be able to engage with leading researchers around the world. This
is true, of course, even in well developed research economies. It is helped by
student mobility across universities.
(i)
Closely matched institutions
can gain considerable additional advantages through closer strategic alliances,
including those of networks or consortia. Some have argued that the rationale
for strategic alliances have moved from cultural reasons to economic and
political purposes.
National level
(a)
Human resources and human
capital. For a community or country, internationalization has, depending on the
circumstances:
o
Economic benefits in the case
of revenue from tuition fees, and
o
Economic benefits that accrue
to a country from attracting top talent to the country. A recent review of this
area can be found in the 2007 OECD publication, Cross-Border Tertiary Education: A Way towards Capacity Development,
in particular, the chapter on GATS by Geloso-Grosso.
(b)
International trade and
positioning of Hong Kong. Hong Kong needs its future workforce to have had an
international education in order to be competitive, for the reasons stated in
the above section.
(c)
Build capacity in other
countries. While Hong Kong has traditionally been seen as somewhat independent
of the ASEAN and other countries around it, it could be argued that it should
in future be seen as a leader in this part of Asia. Just as many developed
countries help developing countries in the region through development aid and
educational aid, Hong Kong should be at least matching their provision, given
the proximity of its neighbours other than Mainland China.
(d)
Increased competition brings a
requirement for local universities and the local education system to be able to
benchmark themselves favourably alongside the overseas competitors. Local
benchmarking, while also necessary, is no longer sufficient. Thus,
internationalization has a quality enhancement and innovation function, both in
terms of each of the individual universities in that country and in terms of
the educational system (e.g. government structures and funding committees) in
that country.
Global level
(a)
The issue of access (i.e. equal
access for all, regardless of socioeconomic background) is assuming greater
importance within countries. However,
more far-sighted educationalists have also considered this across countries,
where per capita GDPs vary enormously and access to quality educational
provision varies similarly. One answer
to this has been to set up online institutions (e.g. U21Global), but another is
to leverage off the internationalization of education (such as students
exchanges, community projects with developing countries).
(b)
Equity – or equality of
opportunity – through education could be regarded as a basic principle of a
developed world based on meritocracy. The more international the education, the
greater is this equality.
(c)
Many of the issues addressed
above at the individual, institution, or national level are also relevant in
sum at the global level.
No comments:
Post a Comment