FROM HIS OFFICE window, Baptist University president and vice-chancellor Ng Ching-fai sees more than the Shaw campus. He can see all the way to the mainland as he envisions campus decentralisation along the lines of some universities in the US or Britain. The former legislator is ready to press ahead with this most ambitious, yet potentially divisive, project - the setting up of a branch campus in Zhuhai in the first such move by a local institution. Recruitment for department heads is already under way for the HKBU United International College, to be sited on the sprawling Beijing Normal University campus. Subject to the approval of the Ministry of Education, it will be open in September, providing sub-degree and degree places for 700 to 1,000 Hong Kongers and mainlanders. The university's 500-member faculty and staff union is concerned that the facility will end up being a liability, given that HKBU has taken out a $100 million loan from its School of Continuing Education to finance the joint venture with BNU. The union was also behind protests last year against plans to impose a wage cut of up to 10 per cent next year, and the month-long signature campaign launched in December against the university's proposed right to lay off future staff in times of financial difficulties. HKBU is bracing for a 3.5 per cent cut in government funding in 2007/8 and increased competition from other institutions for resources. But that has not stopped Professor Ng from setting high goals. He sees Zhuhai as a springboard for further growth for the university, set up originally as a private college in 1956. 'It will provide us with a bigger platform for further development, in terms of space, additional facilities and research postgraduate students. We have to look after our own interests knowing that there is unlikely to be much financial support from the government. 'We will be able to buttress the university's development without using government money nor breaching the University Grants Committee rule that institutions should not cross subsidise their other activities with government money,' said Professor Ng, who enjoys close ties with the mainland as a deputy to the National People's Congress. 'The low cost of living in the mainland allows us to support four or five research postgraduate places at the cost of one here,' he added. 'A university with a stagnant or decreasing number of postgraduate students will go downhill. The good performing staff will leave, leaving only the third-rate staff behind.' He also envisages collaborative master's programmes with BNU or other mainland universities in Zhuhai, an hour away from Hong Kong by ferry. 'Some staff have opposed the plan saying on the one hand the university is cutting staff salaries and yet entering into such a project on the other. But why will it be a financial burden if it is done properly? 'Those opposed to it can continue to be so, but that suggests they have failed to see what the new venture means to the university.' Chances are high that local staff will have to work in the branch campus, though Professor Ng stresses staff teaching there will be doing so on a voluntary basis during his term of presidency. 'Teachers who want to have more research students may want to go there for the sake of their career development. As for what the arrangements will be and whether all new staff will have to work in Zhuhai under a new president, that is something for the future,' he said. It is common in many overseas universities, such as the University of California, where he did his post-doctoral fellowship, for staff to move from one branch campus to another. 'There are many things Hong Kong people are not used to. There are shuttle buses commuting between campuses at the University of California, and the facilities and faculty there are shared.' An expert in membrane science and technology, Professor Ng made no bones about the university's ambition to achieve greater regional standing. He cited Britain's Warwick University which quickly rose to prominence without much government support. Expansion, albeit outside the territory, is necessary because of the various constraints HKBU faces. With a tinge of disappointment, he said the university was given little more than 100 research postgraduate student places by the UGC, and suffered the most acute shortage of space among the eight UGC-funded institutions. There will be additional, though still limited, room for development when the four-year university system is introduced. An agreement has been reached between the government and universities that each will be given additional space proportional to the extra number of students admitted, according to Professor Ng. 'I am expecting an about 20 per cent increase in space for us. How that will be provided remains to be worked out by the UGC,' he said. He is certainly prepared to steer the university through further growth in the next half of his six-year term as president. HKBU will launch its first BA in visual arts this year, with plans to raise the intake to 170 by 2007 from 40. Accompanying that is a plan to set up the territory's first academy of visual arts, to be converted from a Grade I historic building and completed by 2008. An international advisory committee has been set up comprising members from the local and international scenes. Professor Ng expects HKBU to be a leading provider of visual arts education, noting the broad range of arts courses from English, music, fine arts, religion to philosophy, offered together with options provided by its science faculty. 'We have a long tradition of blending arts and science education, and our arts training does not overlap with the compulsory Chinese culture courses at City University. What they are aiming to do there is to provide cultural training to students so they do not become technical barbarians,' he said. Professor Ng, who founded the Society of Hong Kong Scholars, has high hopes for the government's bid to make the SAR an education hub. 'We have got the academic capability but what is lacking is the infrastructure, or support measures like increased scholarships for overseas students or part-time job opportunities,' he said. 'Many of the students from say Southeast Asia are not rich and the living costs in their home countries are cheaper than here. They hope to be able to work while studying here or have access to scholarships. But currently working is not possible for them. If this problem is not solved, you cannot attract many non-local students.' He echoed the views of other university chiefs that there were social benefits to be derived. 'The foreign students who have studied here may stay behind and make great contributions to our society like the large number of foreign students who have stayed behind in the States. Their parents may also buy homes or invest here in future. What is needed is improvement to the infrastructure.' THE STORY SO FAR . . . 1960s: graduated from the University of Melbourne 1969: received doctorate from the University of British Columbia 1970: joined University of Hong Kong, teaching chemistry 1989: became Dean of Science, Baptist University 1998-2001: Legislative Councillor, selected by an election committee 1998: appointed deputy to National People's Congress 2001: appointed president of Baptist University
