Education chief Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun has defended controversial university funding cuts, saying academic standards are unrelated to the amount of government support.
She told an open debate with students and staff in the Legco chamber that university complaints about budgets were 'internal administrative problems'.
Mrs Law cited the example of the University of Kyoto in Japan, saying its academic standards were the best in Asia - but it received less government funding than universities in Hong Kong. 'The example of Kyoto University demonstrates that the amount of government funding and academic standards are not related,' she said.
According to University Grants Committee proposals, funding will be cut about $1.9 billion, or four per cent, over the next three academic years. This follows a 10 per cent cut in 1998.
Mrs Law was told of cuts in tutorial classes and an inability to recruit quality academics because of tight budgets.
But she said: 'A university's internal administrative problems should be dealt with by the university itself.'
Lingnan University president Professor Edward Chen Kwan-yiu warned that he might have to resort to mass lay-offs to cope with the funding cuts. Lingnan receives the smallest grant of Hong Kong's eight universities. It is scheduled to receive $622 million for the next three years.