Where are they? Hong Kong post-secondary colleges fail to meet student admission targets
Chu Hai College of Higher Education recorded the most serious under-enrolment in numerical terms, admitting just 169 new students when the target was 1,030
Thirty-one out of 36 self-financing post-secondary colleges have overestimated their enrolment, with one admitting 91 per cent fewer students than estimated, the latest official figures show.
The figures were revealed after the University of Hong Kong’s self-financing Centennial College recorded a deficit of around HK$13.3 million in 2014-15 and had to seek a managerial reform, which saw two top administrators resign.
According to the figures, released on Wednesday by the government in a written reply to legislators, Chu Hai College of Higher Education recorded the most serious under-enrolment in student numbers, with its self-financing undergraduate programmes only admitting 169 new students in 2015-16, which is 84 per cent lower than the estimate of 1,030.
The troubled Centennial College admitted only 75 new students for its undergraduate programmes and 62 new students for its top-up degree programmes, which are 83 per cent and 81 per cent lower respectively than its estimates.
The Open University’s Li Ka Shing Institute of Professional and Continuing Education, which expected to admit 150 students for its top-up degree programmes, enrolled just 13 – recording the highest percentage overestimate of 91 per cent.