XN000022-1996-12-04 — Page 35

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Eight countries, namely the United States of America (USA), Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom (UK), the Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand and France, voluntarily report the numbers of student visas issued each year to the Census and Statistics Department through their respective Consulates in Hong Kong. The statistics for 1993 to 1995 are set out at Annex A. However, the UGC in its Review of Higher Education in Hong Kong estimated that the numbers of full-time students studying overseas in 1994/95 were 13,000 in the USA, 10,000 in the UK, 9,000 in Australia and 6,500 in Canada. Numbers for other places of study, such as Mainland China and Taiwan, were smaller but might amount to another 2,000 in all.

According to an enquiry on higher education attained outside Hong Kong which was conducted by the Census and Statistics Department via the General Household Survey in the fourth quarter of 1991, 57,200 persons aged 18 and above had returned to Hong Kong after completing their matriculation or higher education courses overseas (excluding China and Macau). Of these, 62% completed undergraduate courses and 23% completed postgraduate courses.

Since most undergraduate courses last from three to four years while the length of postgraduate courses varies widely from one to six or seven years, students who went abroad for undergraduate or postgraduate courses in the past three years and those who returned over that period are in most cases not the same persons. It is not possible, therefore, to identify whether there has been an increase or decrease of local students returning to Hong Kong after completing their studies abroad in the past three years based on the data mentioned above.

However, the 1996 by-census estimates that about 526,000 Hong Kong residents have completed or

or are attending their first-degree or postgraduate courses at local or overseas institutions or through distance learning. They represent about 8% of the total resident population in Hong Kong, which is two times the figure in the 1991 census (i.e. 255,979 persons, 4% of total population). This indicates that the educational attainment of our population has been significantly upgraded between 1991 and 1996. Both the rapid expansion of tertiary education in Hong Kong since 1989 and the increase of returning students and highly educated people from abroad have contributed to this process.