The non-local students policy of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) encourages more non-
local students to be enrolled to the curriculum. Hence, local students can take advantage of
this opportunity to have cultural exchange and enhance their communication skills. In the
view of a local student, the maximum intake of non-local applicants to HKU should be
reduced.
Firstly, there is a great question that if the government should put so much “local”
resources in educating non-local students. The intake of non-local students has been
increasing annually in proportion to the total number of newly admitted students in HKU.
The percentage has been raised from 10 percent in 2006-2007 to 17 percent in 2012-
2013. The larger proportion means that less local students can enjoy the tertiary education
in HKU. However, as a local university which is partly financed by Hong Kong Government,
HKU should have the responsibility to educate local young people for the future
development of Hong Kong. It can be easily proved that those local graduates from HKU had
contributed much to society and this is supposed to be the first and foremost aim of HKU.
Putting resources on educating non-local students may bring benefits to local students but
the amount of resources involved may be too much now.
Secondly, the proportion of newly admitted a non-local student has increased while the
outcome of so-called cultural exchange is not so obvious. As the policy proposed, local
students should have chances to communicate with non-local students. However, the
increasing number of non-local students only seems to have little impact on the frequency
of cultural exchange. It is not about just increasing the number of students but providing
more chances for communication and exchange. To a certain extent, more non-local
students will even form more non-local communities which may possibly discourage local
students to approach those non-local students. HKU should put more resources on
providing channels for communication and exchange between local and non-local students
than maintaining, even increasing, the number of non-local students admitted. Also, the non-
local students from Mainland China may bring even less benefits to cultural exchange
because both local and non-local are Chinese.
Thirdly, the educational support to other countries should be lower due to recent rapid
development of some countries. One of the goals of non-local students policy of HKU is to
provide aid and support to the less prosperous countries. It is true in the early years that
nearby countries needed support from Hong Kong, yet it is doubtful that whether the
support from Hong Kong is essential to them. For example, China and India have their own
popular universities now and the educational support from Hong Kong seems redundant.
Why don’t we put our resources on educating local students?
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