01 view
Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2020-12-23 06:40
Last update date: 2020-12-23 06:40
The government will conduct public consultation on the amendment to the "Post-secondary Colleges Ordinance" from Monday (21st).
The Consultation Document of the Education Bureau mainly proposes to make amendments to the scope of the institutions to which the amendments apply, the powers of the colleges, the governance structure, the qualification requirements of the teaching staff, the requirements for school registration, and the cancellation mechanism.
In the past, local self-financing courses were not well recognized, and the self-financing degrees offered by local universities had unfair competition with other tertiary institutions. These drawbacks should be corrected.
Currently, there are three types of self-financing institutions in Hong Kong: one is affiliated to existing subsidized institutions, such as the affiliated colleges of the University of Hong Kong and the post-secondary colleges of the City University of Hong Kong; the second is based on the "Post-secondary Colleges Ordinance" Chapter 320 Registered institutions, such as Caritas Institute of Technology, Zhuhai College, etc.; third, institutions registered under the Education Ordinance of Chapter 279, such as the Hong Kong Academy of Arts, Hong Kong Institute of Professional Studies, etc.
There are currently three types of self-financing institutions in Hong Kong.
(Profile picture)
Tertiary institutions must compete fairly
Schools are registered in accordance with three regulations respectively. The original intention is to separate the supervision by academic level. Those who can award bachelor or higher degrees are regulated by Chapter 320; those who only award associate degrees and advanced diplomas are registered under Chapter 279.
However, these colleges have the names of "college", "school" and "university", which not only caused confusion in the name, because the affiliated colleges of the existing funding universities are not regulated by Chapter 320, but also allow them to share University resources also benefit from university reputation.
Even though these degrees are all self-financing courses, degrees from university affiliated institutions are still more attractive than other self-financing institutions.
With this amendment, the Education Bureau should include the affiliated colleges of the subsidized universities under Chapter 320 supervision to unify the supervision standards for self-financing course providers.
In 2012, Lingnan University's School of Continuing Education broke out a scandal of "over-acceptance". The teacher-student ratio of the school's courses exceeded the guidelines of the Education Bureau by nearly double.
The consultation document suggested that the college’s registration requirements should be specified in the ordinance. For example, the college must ensure that its governance and management are effective, and provide students with meaningful learning environments and experiences. These conditions can undoubtedly cooperate with the planned deregistration procedures to prevent In the future, there will be other schools offering unreasonable courses of the same kind to ensure that students can get a quality learning environment.
While amending the "Post-secondary Colleges Ordinance", the Education Bureau should also proceed to deal with the current issue of "widening in and out" of self-financing degrees.
(Photo/Photo by Luo Guohui)
Rethinking about entering and leaving
After the self-financing degree of self-financing institutions and subsidized universities should have a certain quality, the next step is to ensure that the self-financing degree graduates can have a certain level to truly achieve the goal of training talents.
Higher education generally adheres to the principle of "strict entry and strict exit". It is easy for students to enter but not easy to graduate, so as to give more people learning opportunities and make sure that graduates are making progress; Resources are allocated effectively.
However, whether it is a self-financing college or an affiliated college of a university, if it is too easy to enter and graduate, it will inevitably give the public the impression that the "learning shop" is only for making money.
The consultation paper proposes to revise the degree awarding procedures of Chapter 320 institutions. From the previous practice that "academics" can award degrees with the prior approval of the Chief Executive in Council, they should instead be awarded accreditation qualifications and permanent appointments by the Accreditation Council. The Secretary-General approved in advance.
While amending the "Post-secondary Colleges Ordinance", the Education Bureau should also address the current issue of "widening the entrance and exit" of self-financing degrees. For example, it can start with tightening admission or graduation requirements. Graduates who require self-financing degrees should also have The level corresponding to the graduates of the subsidized course.
Local self-financing courses used to have insufficient recognition, and how to make their status more important in society is also one of the responsibilities of the Education Bureau.
One pull and one push to regulate self-financing institutions, but higher education still lacks a blueprint for development
The promotion of Hengguan to university is only the first level. How to go on is the challenge
【Post-secondary education.
Proposal (3)] Strict self-financing review, private regulation, lenient
01 depth
Education Bureau Tertiary Education 01 Viewpoint