Quality checks for all self-funded colleges in Hong Kong long overdue

While financial assistance in the form of vouchers will provide immediate relief to students, the long-term impact of such a measure needs to be thought through.

When Milton Friedman first advocated introducing school vouchers in the 1950s, the idea was to replace monopolies in the public school system with a system of competition – by giving parents the freedom to choose.

Judging from the details available so far, the higher education vouchers being mooted are only a form of financial subsidy which will not necessarily enhance competition.

Giving students vouchers for self-funded colleges would only help improve standards if the government installed a unified mechanism for quality assurance for both publicly funded and self-funded colleges.

The University Grants Committee recommended installing such a system as early in 2010, but the government declined to adopt this recommendation. Without such a system, it is difficult to compare the quality of a programme offered by a publicly funded university with a comparable one provided by a self-funded college.