Hong Kong universities 'face bigger challenge from mainland campuses'

HKUST vice chancellor warns city could lose its place as first choice for the best students and should seek greater support from businesses

Wednesday, 02 October, 2013, 3:49pm

Shirley Zhao shirley.zhao@scmp.com

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Tony Chan Fan-cheong urges Hong Kong to prepare for competition from the mainland. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Hong Kong universities have been warned to prepare for stiffer challenges from elite mainland institutions that have more money and bigger pools of talent.

While attention has focused recently on how the city's position as China's primary financial centre may be under threat from Shanghai, a leading academic said it was also in danger of losing its standing as top choice for the nation's brightest students.

The vice chancellor of the University of Science and Technology, Tony Chan Fan-cheong, said the likes of Peking University and Tsinghua University were working hard to raise their standards.

"They have global ambition and great students. That's the long-term competition we're up against. We have to keep running to stay in place."

His warning comes ahead of the release tomorrow of a new global ranking of universities by Times Higher Education.

Chan said Hong Kong's universities cannot compete with the mainland on money or talent. "These I think they have in abundance. But how to use them efficiently and in a proper way so that you don't corrupt your core values? That is another question."

Chan, giving his first interview since renewing a contract that will run until 2019, said Hong Kong must play to its unique strengths: free flow of information and a robust rule of law.

"Here you can get any information. You can access Facebook, Google, Twitter or weibo. Everything is available," he said.

Hong Kong's universities constantly rank among the best in Asia and have become the preferred choice of the mainland's best students.

At the same time, they have been criticised for not working closely enough with the business and commercial sectors. A survey in August by Times Higher Education ranked the city's universities behind those in Korea, Singapore, China and even Turkey in terms of collaborating with business in research efforts.

Chan said local universities should strive for more support from business communities.

"I often envy our counterparts in Korea, because they have scholarships and labs sponsored by companies like Samsung and LG, and when their students graduate, they can get into these companies."

Chan noted that many mainland-based companies, such as Lenovo or Huawei, were setting up labs in Hong Kong.

He said the city must seize these opportunities.

"The government has a role to play in this," said Chan. "It needs to offer [more] initiatives and incentives. We have all the right ingredients. We just need a leader with a vision."

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as HK 'must ready for challenge from mainland'

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Comments

caractacus Oct 2nd 2013
4:47am

First, HK universities have to show they are are better than PRC ones by enforcing ethics instead of covering up scandals when lecturers have shown students the exam questions in advance. But we cannot have Chinese chancellors losing face can we?

Beaker Oct 2nd 2013
11:43pm

I don't need to conjecture. I worked at a major SOE car company where we were supposedly getting engineering graduates from top named universities, Jiaotong, Tongyi, Jilin, places like that. The engineering graduates were for the most part worthless with no problem solving abilities. It was clear these were the best parrots, not the smartest graduates. They did not know how to analyze. Anything which they were not taught by rote, they treated a challenge as some sort of trick question. One must conclude cheating since there was requirement for level 8 English, and some who were hired had no usable English skills. I once was telling an engineer that, if we doubled the pressure, that the stress on the walls would also double. He looked at me and asked how did I know that and where was my simulation to prove that. I just looked at him sadly. The last year of a 4 year education was mostly to keep the kids there to charge them an extra year of tuition. Some 4th year students just spent the whole year to write a paper. Classes cost money to run. Another problem is, the kids' chosen academic path is devoid of their actual education. If they tested well, they will get into a good school, but not given their choice of education. If they really want to, they can pursue their chosen field, but then they don't get to go to the big name school. This leaves most graduates working in professions which they did not choose. I got all of this from talking to our engineers.

SpeakFreely Oct 2nd 2013
11:10am

I always question the high ranking of HK universities giving we don't have major international household name local corp or brand here in HK. VC is not active in Hk at all to support startups. HkU ranked higher than Korea, Japan and China, but Korean has samsung LG alike many international brand. Sames as in Japan and China. What had these local highly ranked universities did for hk? In terms of tech and medical, we don't even have a sizeable local IPO in hi tech nor medical relayed in hk! I really don't understand how local universities were ranked so high?
The best student from China coming to hk? I'm not too sure how true is that. I think mostly from poorer family or those didn't get a scholarship to major schools in overseas. Most of them either stay behind for Financial jobs or use hk as a stepping stone to get into graduate schools in overseas. The other families that can afford mostly send their kids overseas as far as I know.

mercedes2233 Oct 3rd 2013
12:56am

Thank you. Glad to have some real information. So HK has nothing to fear from competing with mainland China universities.

superdx Oct 2nd 2013
7:21pm

Academic fraud is everywhere, in the US, in the EU
But the level of fraud and quality in universities in China that whatever legitimately smart people may be there, the urge to stick the university's name on some state owned project in return for cash is simply too irresitable. Would look twice before seeing any value in a Chinese university research paper, recommendation or sponsored report

jpinst Oct 2nd 2013
4:01pm

Mainland Universities will never amount to anything even considered worthy of admiration except on the Mainland.
This is because they lack academic freedom, control acess to published works, limit topics for post graduate dissertations, (which means less international journals will want to publish the Party's line), restrict subjects taught and class discussions, restrict access to global sources such as the Internet, have very few non-mainland Chinese faculty, the schools are mostly administered by the Party, the top adminitrators are government ofdficials...the list goes on and on.
They can spend trillions and this will not help to establish Mainland Universities as anything other that Party teaching mills.

johnyuan Oct 2nd 2013
5:17pm

Hong Kong universities are happy how they are safely supported by tax money for their operation as well as research work. Conversely, businesses in Hong Kong prefer purchase of provened result over investing in uncertainty of D&R. Much of this business culture predicated that time is the essence. To most, there is plenty shortage of time in this town.
There is perhaps more reason to invest in mainland instead and LKS knows better as we can see of his latest investment in education in his hometown there. There is no shortage of time there.

Beaker Oct 3rd 2013
12:03am

You do know that many Western schools see Chinese students as profit? Even famous schools such as Carnegie Mellon and (bows head) Stanford offers Chinese special curricula where almost all the students who take the curricula are Chinese, and mediocre students get in with no issues (per Chinese graduate about her peers). Imagine this, a 9 month MSCS for $50,000 USD. I had to tell my Chinese friends to take the real one, not the Chinese special. U of Bath in UK had a MSME in automotive design. The text basically explained what the engine/trans does and there are 4 wheels. So, for more money, many schools are forming JVs with Mainland universities, both to get Chinese tuition money and to aggrandize themselves with a Chinese presence, because it looks good. Problem will be, hiring businesses will need to sort out which ones got the real degrees from the ones who got the special degrees intended to look good on a supposedly Western educated, but hardly qualified graduate. In many cases, it won't matter because those with that kind of money have guanxi and parents will get them good jobs where promotions will not be based on merit. I also got that from working at the SOE, where the least capable were the fastest promoted and given the highest profile jobs, to better prepare their CV for later advancement up the Party outside of the SOE, perhaps in municipal government. Aside from Tsinghua, where it really is special, no need to worry. The societal baggage self limits.

mercedes2233 Oct 2nd 2013
10:46pm

Rubbish. Professors don't need to give exam questions in advance to students for good performance reviews. By that time, they are already at the top of their professions. So you obviously don't know what you are talking about, nor the staff hierarchy. I challenge you to name and prove such incidents. Otherwise, please withdraw this unfounded accusation. There are a number of factors justifying promotions and salary increases, and student performance is NOT one of them, so your claim is ridiculous and libelous.