STUDENTS at the Open Learning Institute would be justified in asking why part-time students at institutions funded by the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee (UPGC) enjoy subsidies of one kind or another, when OLI students are not entitled to such benefits.
The official answer is that the OLI is not a UPGC institution. But why has the OLI not been able to come under the UPGC when it is an accredited tertiary body? The OLI began in 1989 as a Government-established institution offering adults open access (without academic entry requirements to fulfil) to higher education through distance learning, under which students could devise a flexible personalised study schedule.
Its programmes are validated by the Hong Kong Council for Academic Accreditation and degrees conferred are recognised both in Hong Kong and overseas.
There are safeguards to put OLI standards on a par with other degree-granting institutions: the validating process is a highly demanding one; and OLI staff are appointed on salary scales broadly comparable to those paid by the local non-university institutions.
Yet, such safeguards make good and lasting sense only if they are supported by sufficient means. For the OLI, this is a hard nut to crack.
Despite being a new and unconventional operation in Hong Kong, the Government has, without convincing grounds, provided grants to the OLI for only its first four years - reduced from $42.8 million in 1989 to $6.8 million in 1993.