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Review of the development of higher education in Hong Kong

The Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Joseph W P Wong, welcomed the University Grants Committee's (UGC) Review Report: Higher Education in Hong Kong, which was published today (Thursday).

"We agree with the conclusion in the Review Report and accept the UGC's main recommendations concerning the broad planning parameters and general direction for the further development of higher education for the period 1998-2001 and beyond," Mr Wong said.

The UGC's Review Report provides the most comprehensive survey of the background and present landscape of higher education in Hong Kong.

The UGC's Report confirms that after a period of rapid expansion, the target of providing first-year first-degree (FYFD) places for 18% of the 17-20 age group has been successfully achieved without undermining the quality of higher education.

"We should now concentrate our resources and energy on the further improvement in the standards of our tertiary students.

"After the period of unprecedented expansion, quality and cost effectiveness will be our focus in the next triennium, and in these respects the Government is taking a rather more proactive approach than formerly," Mr Wong told a press conference this afternoon.

The Government has also accepted the UGC's advice that as the tertiary institutions are entering a period of consolidation, they should be able to achieve a 10% reduction in student unit costs towards the end of the 1998-2001 triennium (i.e. more than 3% per annum), without sacrificing quality.

"We agree with the UGC that the institutions should be able to turn their energies from the problems of expansion to considering how to improve the efficiency and the quality of their existing activities.

"We have also accepted the UGC's advice that 50% of any savings arising from the institutions' cost-saving measures would be ploughed back to fund specific These include the further improvement measures in UGC-funded institutions. development of areas of excellence, additional quality assurance initiatives, and for any necessary institutional restructuring.