[01 Weekly Editorial] What kind of university does Hong Kong need?

Recently, many local universities announced that there have been personnel changes in the management level. The President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Shi Wei, decided to step down one year earlier. Resigned in May 2023.

Leung Cheuk Wai, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong, will also resign after this academic year, and plans to join the Hong Kong Jockey Club as the Executive Director of Charity and Community Affairs and a member of the Management Committee in July 2022. According to sources, Leung’s term also ends one year earlier. .

Keiji Fukuda, dean of the School of Public Health of the University of Hong Kong, has not been renewed by the school and will retire and return to the United States at the end of this year.

Due to the nationality background and subject area of ​​the relevant persons, their departure will inevitably lead to various speculations.

For example, Shi Wei and Guo Wei are both Chinese-Americans born in Taiwan, and neither signed a statement last year that the local university president supports the establishment of the "Hong Kong National Security Act". Therefore, some international relations or political issues were soon attracted. Lenovo.

On the other hand, Liang Zhuowei and Fukuda are currently both members of the Hong Kong government’s anti-epidemic expert advisors, but they both left before the epidemic has lasted for nearly two years, and their choice can easily be regarded as their and the Hong Kong government’s anti-epidemic strategy. Caused by different ideas.

However, apart from the above-mentioned conjectures that lack a solid foundation, a question worthy of our reflection is: "What kind of university does Hong Kong need?"

Chasing rankings becomes a paper factory

The several universities in Hong Kong are mostly world-renowned prestigious universities, but this kind of achievement is based on their enthusiasm for participating in the ranking chase.

During Kuo Wei's tenure as the president of City University, City University broke a scandal in which the number of students was "reported" to push the rankings; when Shi Wei became the president of the University of Science and Technology, although he stated that he would not only focus on rankings that reflect some of the university's achievements However, the actual performance of the school afterwards is still based on chasing international rankings.

As of last Thursday (November 25) at the opening ceremony of the 85th anniversary of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Chairman of the Board of Governors Lin Dahui and the Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor delivered speeches, especially emphasizing that the school was ranked among the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Ranked 66th in the world university and 12th in the "Times Higher Education" global young university rankings.

Many specific calculation methods of international rankings place great emphasis on papers published in professional journals by academics on campus.

Take the "Times Higher Education" World University Rankings as an example. Its "citation" indicator, "teaching" and "research" each account for three components. However, the "citation" itself does not have any sub-indices. The sub-item of "Research Productivity" in "Research" directly calculates the number of published papers. Therefore, it can be said that papers have become the most important indicator in this ranking.

Although the QS World University Rankings have only assigned 20% of the "College Citation" indicator in recent years, other indicators such as "academic reputation" or "employer reputation" are more subjective, while "faculty-student ratio" or "internationalized number" The proportion of points is low, so the overall arrangement will still attract the management of institutions to pay attention to the "College Citation" indicator.

Universities are chasing rankings, turning them into "thesis factories."

(Photo by Luo Junhao)

Universities are chasing rankings, and the ranking system attaches great importance to papers, so the school will naturally focus on asking faculty and researchers to produce more papers cited by their peers.

Individual management is also willing to "work on their own hands" for this, such as the president of the University of Hong Kong, Zhang Xiang, the outgoing dean of the medical school Liang Zhuowei, and nearly 30 other scholars. The list of the most widely cited researchers in 2021, and successfully allowed the University of Hong Kong to enter the world's first 50 universities with the largest number of such scholars for the first time.

The papers of these scholars are widely recognized by their peers, which certainly reflects the high quality of their research. However, when the teaching and research staff put too much effort to produce research papers, the result will inevitably sacrifice the teaching performance of the other end. , The university has become a "paper factory" that does not deserve its name.

The main business of the university lies in establishing morality and fostering people

Looking back at the past few years, Hong Kong university students have taken a more active attitude in participating in public events. This originally reflects that they consciously have social responsibilities. Compared with the times when they were criticized for "political indifference", this is an improvement. However, unfortunately Yes, some of them tend to despise the spirit of the rule of law, and do not even reject glorifying violence and inciting hatred.

Regarding this issue, we can of course blame politicians for instigating or foreign forces to intervene. However, to educate young people so that they have sufficient wisdom and morality to avoid the above situation, is it not the responsibility of many university professors from the beginning? ?

If there is no direct criticism at the time of the incident, and the responsibility is neglected afterwards, even if this kind of person can produce high-quality research, I am afraid that in the end, he will not be a competent university professor.

With the "Hong Kong District National Security Law" passed last year stipulating that Hong Kong schools should "carry out national security education and improve the national security awareness and law-abiding awareness of residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region", various local universities announced this year that relevant content will be included in compulsory courses.

Such measures undoubtedly have the meaning of catering to the new regulations, but the information it reveals is actually more worrying, because it means that our colleges and universities may not have taught such basic citizenship knowledge in the past.

Recently, the compilation of relevant teaching materials by individual colleges and universities has been questioned for misunderstandings of the Basic Law. Some officials in charge of education or university management were unable to answer when asked about the content of the Minato National Security Law. They took the lead. It is really doubtful whether Kuang Zheng's education for young people will be effective in the future.

In May 2018, President Xi Jinping’s speech at the Peking University Symposium mentioned: “University is a place where morality is cultivated and talents are cultivated. It is a place where young people learn knowledge, grow talents, and let their dreams fly... Regarding education and running schools, there are many schools of thought and different theoretical viewpoints, but there is a consensus on that education must train people needed for social development. To train people needed for social development, to be more specific, is to cultivate social development, People who are required by knowledge accumulation, cultural inheritance, national survival, and system operation." The greatest function of universities in society is to cultivate students to be citizens who can make positive contributions to social, economic and cultural development.

Reluctantly, under the trend of Hong Kong institutions to emphasize research and neglect teaching, they seem to have gradually forgotten this primary role.

The main business of a university should be to build morals and build people.

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Leading the transformation of future social development

In addition to teaching students to be humans, university scientific research should also integrate social and economic development, and contribute to coordinated industrial development and advancement of social reforms.

Coincidentally, the aforementioned "Times Higher Education" published the latest world university rankings just two months ago. A total of four universities in Hong Kong have been ranked in the top 100, including the University of Hong Kong at 30th and 49th. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, the 66th Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the 91st Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Examining the calculation method of this ranking, it not only tilts the number of research papers as mentioned above, but also only gives the "Industry Income" the only indicator that directly transfers knowledge to contribute to future social development. The proportion of 2.5%, Hong Kong Advanced Therefore, institutions, teaching and research personnel can also use the rankings to cover up the shortcomings.

In fact, the scores of the local universities that have entered this ranking in terms of "industry income" are at best only unsatisfactory.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with the highest score scored 65.1 points, followed by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong with 60.2 points and 58.5 points respectively, and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University scored only 46.0 points.

In contrast, Peking University and Tsinghua University’s "Industry Income" scores are as high as 93.1 points and 100 points, the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University also have 75.4 points and 87.0 points, and National Taiwan University and Tsinghua University in Taiwan have 75.4 points and 70.7 points. All performances in this area are better than those of local institutions.

University scientific research has not directly contributed to the development of social industries. It is no wonder that Hong Kong has always been criticized in recent years for having no outstanding scientific research, but lack of industrial transformation.

Pure scientific research can promote the overall progress of mankind. This is definitely worthy of recognition and support. However, before that, universities and their members at all levels have always been part of the local society. Therefore, whether it is to educate the next generation of young people For people, or focusing on scientific research to create new knowledge, their work must be able to contribute to the future development of society.

Specifically, university teachers should meet the basic requirements for training university students to become talents. Researchers cannot only publish papers but don’t know how to transfer their knowledge back to the society, and university management needs to try to avoid faculty and students from entering by mistake. Astray, we hope that those in charge of local universities in the future can truly fulfill these responsibilities.

Please pay attention to the 293th "Hong Kong 01" weekly electronic report published on November 29, 2021.

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