His placid look belies the fact that he is under a burden of debt and expects tough years ahead. Working as a clerk at an IT company since completing an associate degree course last year, Marco Cheng Leung-tung is prepared to juggle work that involves night shifts and studying for a degree.
He epitomises tens of thousands of sub-degree graduates in Hong Kong who are obsessed with obtaining a degree. In April, he signed up for an engineering course at the Open University of Hong Kong although he knows full well that having a degree is no guarantee of finding rewarding employment.
A colleague of his who is a university graduate is making only a few hundred dollars more than he does a month. 'Half of my college mates want to do a degree. Employers will go for someone with a sub-degree more than someone with Form Seven qualification; and similarly, someone with a degree more than someone without,' said Marco, 24.
Hong Kong has seen rising aspirations for university education in the decade since the government unveiled its goal of providing post-secondary education for 60 per cent of college-age students. That spawned a spate of associate degree (AD) and higher degree (HD) programmes offered by private colleges and continuing education arms of universities. Many HD programmes date back to the colonial era, when they were seen as a form of post-secondary, practically oriented training.
The rapid growth of sub-degree places has also fuelled youngsters' desire to acquire a full degree. According to government statistics there were 52,100 associate and higher degree students in the past academic year, a dramatic increase from 8,895 in 2001.
Up to 65 per cent of university-age youngsters in Hong Kong now have access to higher education, academics say. But the fact remains that most sub-degree graduates end up disillusioned, unable to get into any of the eight publicly funded institutions. Many have opted instead for self-financed programmes - some of which are of dubious quality - paying more than the annual tuition fee of HK$42,100 for publicly funded degree programmes. On the strength of their top academic scores, only a tiny per cent of sub-degree graduates are given degree places at publicly funded institutions each year.