Credit transfers for students defended
A credit transfer system proposed as part of a radical shake-up of the higher education system will not result in a pick-and-choose scenario for students, the University Grants Committee says.
Committee secretary-general Peter Cheung Po-tak also said yesterday the Government would make a public promise that breaking the link between university staff pay and civil servants pay would not lead to salary cuts.
In a blueprint on higher education reform unveiled on Tuesday, the committee recommended a credit accumulation and transfer system under which undergraduate students can transfer between universities with their accumulated academic credits.
Students will be able to take courses at universities other than their own institutions. Mr Cheung said the committee hoped the scheme could be introduced between 2004 and 2007.
Some university chiefs oppose the proposal on the grounds it would lead to the prospect of students shuttling among the eight tertiary institutions to attend their favoured courses.
The survival of small institutions would be at risk because students would flock to 'brand name' universities under the scheme, some academics warned.
But Mr Cheung said this situation was unlikely to arise.
'A university can set some 'home-institution rules' like requiring their students to get at least 70 per cent credit units from attending courses it offers to fulfil graduation requirements,' he said.
Mr Cheung said the scheme was aimed at healthy competition among institutions. He said at the end of each three-year period, the committee would readjust student places for institutions and programmes which recorded consistent over-subscription would receive an increase in funding, while there would be cuts in opposite cases. Mr Cheung said the committee was trying to gain an assurance from the Government that a delinked pay scale was not designed to cut salaries. The committee proposes delinking with civil service rates to give tertiary institutions greater flexibility to determine staff salaries to lure better academics.
Chinese University vice-chancellor Arthur Li Kwok-cheung said he was worried that the proposal would lead to further cuts in university funding.
'I have reservations about the proposal unless the Government make a written pledge that it will not make further cuts following the delinking of the pay scale,' he said.
Mr Cheung said the Government would make a public promise to address the concern of university staff.
Lingnan University registrar Mui lok-wood said Hong Kong had no tradition of students taking courses outside their own institutions.
The two-month consultation period will end at the end of May.
