Our universities need to compete better to excel, says City University president Kuo Way

In the latest instalment in the Moving Forward series, Shirley Zhao talks to City University president PROFESSOR KUO WAY. He discusses areas that need improvement in tertiary education, and how the Hong Kong government should provide incentives for students to study innovation and technology-related disciplines so local universities can remain competitive.

Hong Kong's universities used to be quite competitive, but now universities in South Korea and Singapore have caught up. So, they no longer outshine others. Meanwhile, mainland universities have been improving very fast recently in the world university rankings, especially Tsinghua University, Peking University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. This is why we should move forward or we'll fall behind.

Firstly, we are making progress, but others are making progress as well. Secondly, Hong Kong's investment in developing technology is the lowest among neighbouring regions, including Taiwan, the mainland, South Korea and Singapore. Ours does not even reach 1 per cent [of GDP], compared to around 3 per cent in advanced places. In fact, Hong Kong has a great advantage that other places don't have - it does not have a military budget, which can sometimes account for 30 per cent of GDP. Other regions, including Singapore, all have military budgets. So our investment in technology could be higher.