'Boutique' college offers alternative path to post-secondary education

Not every student is able to gain admission to an elite university, and fortunately there are other paths to post-secondary education. Monir Khan has found an English-speaking environment that fulfils his needs, and has just completed the first of two years in the international business programme at Yew Chung Community College in Kowloon Bay.

Khan, 22, from Bangladesh, says that environment and the low teacher-to-student ratio proved helpful to non-Chinese-speaking students like him.

"Our lecturers are very supportive and attentive, which makes a lot of difference for students, especially for those in the first year of the associate degree programme. Whenever we have a problem, our lecturers will immediately spot it and help us out. Our classes are very interactive. This goes to show how important it is to have a small class," says Khan.

The teacher-to-student ratio at Yew Chung is about 1:10, which is a huge bonus compared with other colleges.

"It goes both ways to help non-Chinese students like myself and also Chinese students who can truly improve their spoken English. There are students who didn't really have the confidence to converse in English at the beginning of the school year, and then they transformed and became so confident that they were able to speak reasonable English at the end of the first year. It's just unbelievable," he says.

Yew Chung is one of 19 so-called sub-degree institutions in Hong Kong, meaning they are licensed to provide post-secondary instruction but do not award bachelor's degrees.

Khan likes that Yew Chung also offers Chinese study for non-Chinese students. "This is a really good thing to offer a two-way language thing," he says. "It's not that I can speak and write Chinese fluently as a result, but at least I am given a chance to understand Chinese culture. It helps to create an open campus culture for students to learn to embrace diversity and build an international mindset."