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Education

completed in 2017-18. All public-sector and DSS schools also received an extra recurrent government funding in the same school year to strengthen their IT staffing support for e-learning and education initiatives which would harness IT. Professional development programmes for teachers, on-site support under the IT in Education Centre of Excellence Scheme and online resources serve to help schools implement e-learning.

Post-secondary Education

Hong Kong has 22 local degree-awarding post-secondary education institutions, eight of which are funded by the public through the UGC, namely the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, Lingnan University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Education University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Hong Kong. The other 14 are the publicly funded HKAPA, the self-financing Open University of Hong Kong, the VTC's Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong and 11 approved post-secondary colleges registered under the Post Secondary Colleges Ordinance, namely the Caritas Institute of Higher Education, Centennial College, Chu Hai College of Higher Education, Gratia Christian College, HKCT Institute of Higher Education, Hong Kong Nang Yan College of Higher Education, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, UOW College Hong Kong, Tung Wah College and Yew Chung College of Early Childhood Education. Together with providers of locally accredited sub-degree programmes, there are about 30 post-secondary institutions.

In terms of full-time studies in the 2018-19 academic year, the UGC-funded universities and the HKAPA together provided around 15,200 publicly funded, first-year-first-degree intake places, while self-financing undergraduate programmes offered about 9,400 places. The UGC-funded universities and the self-financing, degree-awarding institutions also provided around 5,000 senior-year undergraduate places and 9,400 top-up degree places respectively, mainly for sub- degree graduates. At sub-degree level, about 21,500 self-financing and 10,600 publicly funded intake places were available.

At postgraduate level, 2,500 and 5,600 UGC-funded taught and research places were available in 2018-19 respectively. As regards self-financing places, taught and research programmes registered actual enrolments of 41,200 and 3,900 respectively in 2018-19.

The government strives to provide secondary school leavers with flexible, diversified pathways. with multiple entry and exit points through promoting the quality and sustainable development of the publicly funded and self-financing post-secondary education sectors. In 2018-19, nearly 80 per cent of the relevant age cohort had access to post-secondary education. Among them, about 50 per cent had access to degree education, including 31 per cent enrolled in publicly funded undergraduate programmes.

The Task Force on Review of Research Policy and Funding, established in October 2017, conducted a holistic review of the research support strategy and the level and allocation mechanism of research funding for Hong Kong's higher education sector, and submitted its final report to the government in September 2018. Its recommendations were accepted by the government in full, including increasing research funding substantially; setting up a Research

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