China and Hong Kong seek oversea Brightest students

Peking University out to lure HK's brightest
By Raymond Li and Elaine Yau
14 December 2010

Peking University, once the natural choice for China's elite students, launches its biggest recruitment campaign in recent years in Hong Kong today as it and other top institutions face growing competition from the region and the world.

In a hard-sell roadshow aimed at Hong Kong students and their parents, it will hold three recruitment sessions, starting with one tonight at the University of Hong Kong.

Others will follow at Pui Ching Middle School and St Mary's Canossian College.

"A world-class university is marked by rich diversity and different origins of students it attracts. We have stepped up the recruitment of students in Hong Kong to strengthen that diversity," said Dr Qin Chunhua, director of the admissions office.

"Recruiting more Hong Kong students will benefit both students from Hong Kong and those from the mainland, as Hong Kong students tend to be more open-minded, vigorous in logical thinking and have a strong sense of responsibility."

As well as countering competition from Hong Kong and the rest of the world for the mainland's best and brightest students, the university wants more global recognition.

The recruitment drive is also part of the central government's plan to make mainland universities more international and competitive - which Beijing considers crucial to match its growing economic clout on the world stage.

The authorities now offer handsome scholarship packages to overseas students to convince them to study at elite mainland universities.

Qin said Peking University - popularly known as Beida, a contraction of its name in Chinese - was particularly interested in promoting a scholarship scheme to Hong Kong secondary students.

Under the scheme, 20 of the city's outstanding students are admitted on the basis of their high school academic merits without having to sit an entry examination. They also receive 30,000 yuan (HK$35,000) a year towards the cost of their undergraduate studies. The scheme, sponsored by Henderson Group, began in 2004.

Those moves come against the backdrop of increasing integration of the tertiary education sector on the mainland with that in the rest of the world. Ministry of Education figures show 238,184 overseas students studied on the mainland last year, up by 14,685 from the previous year.

In the meantime, the number of mainland students going to overseas colleges rose nearly 50,000 last year to 229,000.

The increasing preference of top mainland students for universities in Hong Kong over Beida and the other top Beijing university, Tsinghua, has been used by critics to attack what they say is a decline in teaching quality at elite mainland institutions.

In response, many mainland universities have stepped up recruitment overseas and in Hong Kong.

Figures from the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority show that admission of Hong Kong students to undergraduate studies at mainland universities went up from 189 in 2005 to 526 last year, although growth in the previous two years was slow. Statistics from Beida's Office of Hong Kong Macau and Taiwan Affairs showed that about 230 Hong Kong students were studying there, 57 per cent of them undergraduates.

The office says the figure has been steady over the past two years with most students from Hong Kong choosing degrees in humanities and social sciences.

Lik Hang-tsui graduated from Baptist Lui Ming Choi Secondary School in 2005 and went to study history at Beida on a scholarship sponsored by China Resources Group.

He did so despite a lack of interest among his secondary classmates in the university's recruitment and his worries about Beida's lack of international prestige and possible culture shock from ideological differences.

The 23-year old hopes the four years he spent studying Chinese history at Beida will help him win a full scholarship from Oxford University. He would prefer to do his doctoral studies at the British university because he is worried that the Beijing institution's relative lack of international profile could compromise his career.

Pamini Cheung, who graduated from Marymount Secondary School in 2009 and went to study international relations at Beida the same year, has no such worries.

She said Beida was much more international than most believed. She even had a schoolmate from Tonga.

Cheung, who entered Beida through the college entrance examinations for overseas students and pays 26,000 yuan a year in tuition fees, said the choice of university was a careful career consideration. "Beijing is becoming a new centre of the world and I want to witness that."

Mainland education commentator Professor Xiong Bingqi said that despite a substantial increase in government spending on scholarships and services for overseas and Hong Kong students, the preference among those students for short language courses and the humanities over science and engineering meant not much had changed.

"The preference is an indicator of how less competitive mainland universities are in the world in terms of overall teaching quality," he said.

"If you're not going to raise the level of teaching, you can't attract the top students no matter how many scholarships you give away."

Raymond Chan Mau-chiu, assistant professor specialising in mainland-Hong Kong educational exchanges in Baptist University's department of education studies, said a brain drain of top students was happening in both Hong Kong and the mainland.

"Top mainland students want to come here and the cream of our crop head north to tap the vast market there. But it's not a bad thing in the long term as such exchanges could boost the international outlook of both local and mainland graduates."

Beida and HKU will sign a memorandum of understanding for the launch of a joint master programme for law studies, the first of its kind for the two universities. Three students will be recruited every year to spend a year in each university.

December 14, 2010



HK seeks to lure brightest young minds

BEIJING, July 14 -- Globalization of higher education and a surge in the number of mainland students looking southwards for tertiary studies has prompted the Hong Kong government to establish a steering committee to promote the city as a regional education hub.

The committee, headed by Chief Secretary for Administration Rafael Hui, is charged with studying and formulating policies in areas such as immigration and employment. The purpose of this extensive exercise is to bolster Hong Kong's competitiveness in the global battle for the brightest young minds.

Relaxation of immigration rules to allow tertiary institutions to accept more non-local students is the key to the success of the education hub plan, which is pretty much still on the drawing board.

Hong Kong raised the quota for non-local students from 4 to 10 per cent last year. But university leaders want an incremental growth to 20 per cent.

The city's eight publicly funded universities enrolled 4,700 non-local students in 2005-2006, or 6 per cent of the total student population. Mainlanders made up the bulk of the recruits because of their geographical proximity and cultural affinity.

They accounted for more than 90 per cent of non-local undergraduates and postgraduates at Chinese University and City University and 89 per cent at Polytechnic University. Meanwhile, 54 per cent of the University of Hong Kong's (HKU) non-local undergraduates and 76 per cent of its postgraduates come from the mainland.

Though traditionally prestigious seats of learning such as Peking University and Tsinghua University will continue to attract the top performers in the college entrance exams, more mainland students are expected to make a beeline for Hong Kong this year.

The extent of the inflow can be gauged by HKU's recent announcement that it has received 10,000 applications for undergraduate studies alone this year compared to 4,848 last year.

Mainland students have a number of reasons to choose Hong Kong, not least because it's a place where the East meets West. They are drawn to the city's multicultural and multilingual environment, hoping to benefit from its more global outlook.

Some opt for it because of the generous scholarships offered to top performers. HKU, for an example, has earmarked a scholarship budget of HK$55 million (US$7.1 million) for mainlanders, with students getting anything between HK$30,000 (US$3,896) and HK$100,000 (US$12,987) a year.

Good employment prospects are also a temptation the students find hard to resist, especially when well-paid jobs are becoming a rarity on the mainland nowadays. An HKU survey shows that 99 per cent of its 2005 graduates are either employed or pursuing further studies. Those working earn an average salary of HK$14,214 (US$1,822) a month, with some making as much as HK$74,443 (US$9,544).

But Hong Kong may not be the best choice for all, particularly students pursuing natural sciences. What's worse, the city has limited employment opportunities in this field.

Unless they get a scholarship, mainland students should think twice before moving to Hong Kong. They ought to realize that the cost of education is too heavy a burden for an average mainland family to bear. University fees range from HK$60,000 (US$7,792) to HK$80,000 (US$10,390) a year. Meanwhile, the cost of living in Hong Kong is the fourth-highest in the world.

But despite all the odds, more mainland students will flock to Hong Kong and help this regional education hub take shape. (Zou Hanru)
(Source: China Daily)