High marks for Hong Kong’s hotels as student accommodation
A pilot scheme to be launched next month is worth pursuing to ensure the city makes the grade as an education hub
Dormitories should be where university students live, study together and find plenty of new friends.
Sadly, a shortage of such accommodation in Hong Kong stands in the way of such experiences and the city’s hopes of becoming an international hub for education.
So authorities deserve high marks for proposing a way forward by relaxing rules for converting hotels into university student accommodation.
A government paper submitted to the Legislative Council on June 20 proposed expanding the definition of “hotels” to include student hostels.
They would also waive planning procedures and simplify applications, allowing private operators to build dorms on commercial land more easily. A pilot scheme is scheduled to be launched in the middle of next month.
There is no time to lose. The Education Bureau says the city’s eight publicly funded universities had about 103,400 students in the 2024-25 academic year. About 76,900 were Hongkongers and 26,500 non-locals in full-time undergraduate and postgraduate research.