Allowing students to earn degrees by taking courses at more than one university could put the survival of smaller institutions at risk, academics warned yesterday.
The proposal, one of several recommendations in a review of higher education released last week, could mean funding for a university being determined by its popularity with students.
At an RTHK forum yesterday, heads of some of the eight universities said the credit transfer system proposed by the University Grants Committee in its report would result in confusion.
The move would allow undergraduates to take subjects at universities other than their own and gain credits towards their degrees.
While giving his support in principle to the system, Lingnan University president Professor Edward Chen Kwan-yiu warned the model was unfair to smaller institutions because it sought to link funding with the number of students taking a course.
Professor Chen said: 'Students will flock to brand-name universities. It is not fair competition among universities. Are we satisfied that we should put the future of a university in the hands of a 17-year-old boy or girl?'
City University's dean of science and engineering, Professor Roderick Wong Sue-cheun, said such a system could be open to abuse.
