Lessons for Hong Kong from Australia’s remarkable international education sector

Oct 31, 2024
A view of University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (China). Students gather at the main library, the University of Hong Kong.

One crucial policy initiative outlined by Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee Ka-chiu, in his latest annual Policy Address is the project to establish the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as an international tertiary education hub.

Hong Kong tertiary institutions already attract many students from around the world and especially from the Chinese mainland. It makes good sense to enhance this profile substantially, based on long-term, systematic planning.

An apt place to look to see why this is so — but also to see how complex the challenges can be — is Australia. It is presently the closest major education hub to China. And it has, overall, enjoyed remarkable success in this regard.

Australia was well established as an international education hub over 30 years ago, drawing most of its international-onshore students from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. This education hub status has developed dramatically ever since, notwithstanding a measurable, transient decline due to the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in 2020.

Australia, with a population of just under 27 million, has 42 universities. Australian government figures show that almost 800,000 international students are presently studying at universities and other educational institutions in Australia. Those same official figures show how this translates into an additional annual income of around HK$190 billion ($24.45 billion). Education is Australia’s fourth-largest export earner. For the state of Victoria and for Melbourne, its capital, it is the No 1 export earner.

Most international students come to Australia to attend universities. Still, substantial numbers also arrive to study at various technical institutes and secondary schools, while others attend short-term courses in English, for example.

Thus, Australia has accumulated a wealth of experience in operating as an international education hub. Accordingly, it has also witnessed various pivotal challenges that arise from developing and maintaining this role. These include: safeguarding student welfare; ensuring sufficient student accommodation; maintaining pertinent academic standards (especially in the use of English); policing misuse of student visas; and cracking down on system-abuse by certain education providers.

So, what are the sound lessons Hong Kong might learn from this experience?

First, it would be very smart to develop a detailed, initial 10-year plan focused on expected long-term numbers; adequate tertiary institute resourcing; significant improvements in public scholarship support programs; offshore joint-partner linkages; student accommodation; and the policing of potential rogue operators and student visa abuse.

Providing student accommodation is a singular priority. Most international students in Australia still rent accommodations in the private sector. Although there has been a major increase in the private building of student accommodations close to tertiary institutions, the market remains very tight, especially as international student numbers have surged again, post-COVID-19.

In Hong Kong, the rental market is even tighter. Moreover, around 250,000 people still live in subdivided units, and rehousing this huge number of disadvantaged fellow residents, hopefully within the next decade, is paramount. (It is worth noting that, although this number is genuinely alarming, in cities around the Global West, including in Australia, far more similarly disadvantaged people are entirely homeless, regularly living on the streets.)

Having reviewed the long-term positive potential and specific serious challenges, let’s examine some of Hong Kong’s unique “drawing card” aspects as an international education hub.

First, with a population of around 7.5 million, we have a significant number of very good tertiary institutions, including some excellent universities and a range of quality technical and vocational colleges.

In the latest tables from the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Hong Kong’s leading institution (the University of Hong Kong) ranked ahead of Australia’s (Melbourne University) — which are within the top 50 worldwide. In general, the best Hong Kong universities have been gradually advancing compared to Australia’s leading universities, where funding is now tighter than before.

Next, Hong Kong is exceptionally well positioned to add value, over time, to China’s remarkable Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by offering fresh educational opportunities, in English, to well qualified applicants seeking both university education and technical and vocational training. This BRI-sourced demand is surely set to increase significantly over the coming decades.

Then there is the essential fact that Hong Kong is one of the safest, most efficient big cities in the world. It also enjoys an unmatched, glittering harbourside essence, where steep green mountains rise adjacent to the surrounding South China Sea.

Meanwhile, a substantial bonus resulting from Hong Kong’s world-class, affordable public transport system is that student accommodation does not need to be campus-adjacent. Adjacent locations are favoured in Australia — where cities are less safe and public transport is more thinly spread — in the interests of student well-being and convenience.

Finally, Hong Kong’s leading tertiary institutions already have excellent longstanding cooperation agreements with universities and colleges worldwide. So it would be wise to plan for partner-education programs, where new international students coming to Hong Kong could be offered the embedded opportunity of spending a semester, at least, studying with a partner institution in, for example, Australia or the United Kingdom.

Despite the dreary, ongoing Western media’s negative news blitz focused on Hong Kong, people globally are progressively seeing through this fog of formulated misinformation. This year we have seen a marked lift in Western academic experts keen to visit Hong Kong to present and exchange views. And once they visit, almost all swiftly begin planning their next trip.

Hong Kong remains a unique and marvellous place to live and study. The project to develop the HKSAR as a leading international education hub is admirable. Doing this well will take time and requires much thoughtful planning. The potential benefits, however, are substantial, apparent and wide-ranging.

 

Republished from CHINA DAILY, HONG KONG, October 21, 2024

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