Professor Morris repeated his claim that he was told by HKIED council chairman Thomas Leung Kwok-fai in June that his reappointment hinged on his acceptance of a merger and said Professor Li had pursued the issue 'very strongly'.

Fourteen members of the 16-seat council, which voted 10 to three with three abstentions against his reappointment, are government appointees.

'When Arthur was vice-chancellor of CUHK he made a bid to take over the HKIEd and there has been only one item on his agenda where the institute is concerned since then,' Professor Morris said.

Although Professor Li had argued for mergers between other institutions, they had been out in the open and unsuccessful.

'With HKIEd he has operated behind the scenes,' Professor Morris said. 'The biggest problem senior management has had to deal with consistently has been the pressure to merge.

'Merging is not government policy ... but Arthur's agenda and he has pursued it very strongly in the form of conversations and direct discussions which are, of course, informal and behind the scenes.

'I think he's very determined. This is where he started and this is what he wants to achieve. We're the easiest institution to achieve it with.

'He always had a goal of reducing the number of universities through mergers. Whether it is to do with academic reasons or economic ones I don't know.

'My understanding is that he thinks you would attract better students if you were to merge and have the brand image as a branch of a university, but the evidence clearly demonstrates that what determines whether students go into teacher education is the attractions of the profession.

'We have done joint degrees with CUHK and that has not affected intake,' he said.

Professor Morris said that operating independently with university status was a different matter, allowing HKIEd to compete on an even playing field.

He said Professor Li rejected that argument at a meeting in December, saying that he and other staff only wanted the title out of 'vanity'.

'He said we were arguing for it so we could call ourselves university professors,' he said.

Professor Morris said another reason why the government wanted to keep HKIED on a tight rein and a 'source of tension over the years' had been staff criticising some aspects of government policy.

'It has upset them that colleagues here have sometimes been critical of education reforms, because they feel that HKIEd is not an independent university-level institution but one that should be closely following government policy.'

This was one reason, he said, why HKIEd did not have an independent council, an issue he described as a 'very deep problem of governance'.

'Our council members are appointed directly by government. We should have people from bodies such as the Catholic Church, Sheng Kung Hui and other school-sponsoring bodies. It is a very deep structural issue,' he said.

'We have the bizarre situation where our staff don't have a say in the reappointment of the vice-president, yet staff from other universities, with whom we compete, do. It is ridiculous.'

Professor Morris said he was 'saddened' by the turn of events that could threaten HKIEd's future.

The institute had the potential to become the best institute of its kind in Asia, but interference and the governance issue had created a lot of uncertainty.

'Why invest millions in the campus and go through all the pains of upgrading the place and then not support it and help it achieve its role which is to help the community and kids in schools?' he said.

'HKIEd was created by government with public money yet it doesn't seem to want to allow the institute to achieve the task for which it was set up for.'

Professor Morris said it was inappropriate to merge with mainstream universities because they were research oriented. Although HKIEd should not be denied postgraduate research, it should be kept in perspective. The institute was about training teachers.

'Our mission is to educate professional teachers. You have to be careful to make sure your staff are not driven by research alone. The mission of CUHK is research output,' he said. 'Education is not high up the food chain of a comprehensive university.'

An Education and Manpower Bureau spokeswoman said Professor Li did not want to comment on Professor Morris's allegations.

'He totally respects the autonomy of HKIEd,' she said.