The Hong Kong government appointed a task force to review the development of the private tertiary education sector, and the task force recently produced its report. One of the suggestions of the task force is to detach the private extension arms of publicly funded universities (e.g. HKU SPACE, City University SCOPE). This would mean the extension arms being regulated by the Post Secondary Colleges Ordinance, as opposed to the parent university statutes. 

‘Putting self-financing arms under the ordinance would promote coherence in the private education sector in terms of quality assurance and governance.’, says Professor Anthony Cheung in the South Morning China Post (SCMP).

Other recommendations included:

1. Setting up an impartial and transparent mechanism of deregistration for operators that fall to meet their original plan and presubscribed standards after a reasonable trial period

2. Institutions with good performance may be able to upgrade to the university level

3. Conducting a review of the structure and curriculum of sub-degree programmes.

During the public consultation exercise as part of the task force review, institutions that would be affected raised concerns about the importance of the linkage to the parent institutions. Upon release of the task force findings, the task force chairman suggested that these concerns could be addressed flexibly, including branding and usage of campus facilities.

According to SCMP, Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung said the bureau would study the review report and consider its recommendations.

Comments by Anna Lee, Head of Education Services, North East Asia

Usually when a government appointed task force issues recommendations in Hong Kong, it ends up as policy. The proposed change to the status of extension arms of publicly funded universities could have a significant impact on student recruitment. These extension arms such as HKU SPACE and City University SCOPE currently do not benefit from the ‘Non-means-tested Subsidy Scheme for Self-financing Undergraduate Studies’, which has hurt their student recruitment compared to other institutions where students do benefit. Under the non means-tested subsidy scheme students benefit from this annual subsidy of HK$30,000. 

Before this recommendation becomes policy a number of issues would need to be worked out, such as continued use of parent university branding. There will also potentially be resistance from existing independent institutions, who would see themselves at a disadvantage if the extension arms start to benefit from the subsidy scheme will continuing to use parent university branding. We will continue to update the UK sector as events develop.

Sources:

• South Morning China Post: Separating self-financing arms from public universities will help, not hurt them, Hong Kong education task force says
• Hong Kong Education Bureau: Task force on review of self-financing post-secondary education – review report