What Hong Kong’s university admissions say about social inequality, and the need for medical sector reform

Albert Cheng says the uproar over non-Jupas applicants taking up a large share of seats in prestigious courses such as medicine could be addressed by allowing doctors trained overseas to practise in Hong Kong, easing the competition for medical places here

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Queen’s College students anxiously await their DSE exam results on July 11. Their exam scores determine their chances of getting into sought-after courses in publicly funded universities. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 9:45am, 7 Sep 2018Updated: 9:45am, 7 Sep 2018

Upward mobility in Hong Kong has increasingly become a challenge since the handover. Meanwhile, the deep-rooted conflict between the generations has polarised Hong Kong, causing social unrest. While the failure of the city’s education policy lies at the root of the problem, protectionism in certain professions has worsened social inequality.

The latest Joint University Programmes Admissions System (Jupas) results reflect this inequality. Jupas is the platform through which students with Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) examination results apply for admission to local universities. DSE students are usually allocated the majority of places at universities, while non-Jupas students make up a small percentage.

However, in recent years, an increasing number of students in prestigious degree programmes, such as medicine, international business and law, are from the non-Jupas stream. Students who go to government-funded schools and take the DSE are increasingly pushed out of these fields.

This year, of the 15,000 publicly funded undergraduate degree places, 13,134 were granted to Jupas applicants. However, non-Jupas applicants claimed around 40 per cent of the sought-after programmes at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Chinese University. Forty-four per cent of those admitted to Chinese University’s medicine programme were non-Jupas applicants.

In fact, these prestigious programmes are very competitive; only students who score 31 points or above in the DSE are eligible. This year, the 687 eligible Jupas applicants were competing with more International Baccalaureate, IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) and Advanced Placement exam-takers.