Provide more subsidized degree places
It is definitely heart-rending to hear a 17-year-old school leaver reportedly commit suicide because of failure to get into university shortly after the Joint University Programs Admissions System (JUPAS) announced its results last week. This tragic incident, if anything, further exposes the under-supply of subsidized degree places as well as a woeful lack of pathways for aspiring students to climb up the education ladder. When the government has been claiming for years it will place paramount importance on cultivating talent and promoting knowledgebased development, this ironic situation certainly serves as a wake-up call for a holistic review of the city’s higher education.
The admission figures alone for this year afford a glimpse of the cruel reality for the city’s young school leavers. And competition is especially keen this year with a 7 percent rise in the number of those eligible for admission to the city’s publicly funded universities. Among some 70,000 Secondary Six students who sat for the new public exam, more than 28,000 met the threshold requirements. But there are only 12,500 subsidized degree places under JUPAS with another 3,000 places provided for candidates from outside the admission system. In other words, more than 15,000 will be left out in the cold and fewer than one-in-two will gain entry to subsidized undergraduate programs.
For those ruthlessly sifted through the net of subsidized university education, they are definitely caught in limbo. Those who are relatively well-off may still opt for overseas education with some 3,500 candidates obtaining subsidized associate degree places. For the other unfortunates, they may either join the workforce or take up self-financed vocational or sub-degree programs in the hope of securing a better career future.
True, there has been a robust supply of selffinanced sub-degree programs sprouting in recent years since former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa announced a target to increase the percentage of school leavers receiving post-secondary education to 60 percent in 2000. But the price tag of more than HK$200,000 for a fouryear course is not affordable to many who will be heavily in debt for treading this path. If these programs prove value for money by promising a bright education or career future, it is worth the price. The reality is, according to a census report early this year, despite the number of youngsters receiving post-secondary education having doubled from 20 percent in 2001 to 40 percent in 2011, their median income has remained stagnant at HK$8,000 per month. The results show that sub-degree programs have failed to gain enough recognition in society or live up to employers’ expectation of quality.
The fundamental flaw is no unified mechanism exists to monitor and guarantee the quality of these sub-degree programs, alongside a grave shortage of top-up degree programs for aspirants to pursue further studies. At present, sub-degree programs provided by private institutions are accredited by the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications, while those provided by the city’s publicly-funded universities are accredited by the Joint Quality Review Committee operated by universities themselves. Obviously, the review committee is expected to be more lenient on the programs run by its members. As a result, it triggers what is called “quantitative easing” of subdegree programs by the universities and other institutions, as well as over-enrolment scandals at institutions such as Lingnan University’s community college. But there is not a unified accreditation system to allow students as well as employers to check the academic quality and standards of these programs. How can employers assess the degree holders’ academic quality?
Undoubtedly, there is a need to review the sub-degree policy as well as the subsidy policy for degree places. Despite a rise in the number of eligible candidates for degree places in recent years, the number of subsidized degree places has been frozen at around 15,000 a year, accounting for about 20 percent of school leavers. Compared with over 70 percent in Europe, the US, and South Korea, the higher education attainment rate in the city is lagging far behind other countries. When the government keeps proclaiming that fostering talent is key to the success of the city’s sustainable development, it needs to provide more subsidized degree places, including sub-degrees and top-up degrees, to allow more aspiring students to embark on the journey of higher education.