By Athena Zhou Zixi
HKU Convocation held a forum entitled “HKU’s internationalization: For whom and for what” on February 21st. The forum highlighted the plan for further developing the Asian internationalized campus, while many concerns remain to address.
The forum is in response to the recent policy address of the Hong Kong government. On Oct 25th, 2023, Lee Ka-chiu, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, announced a plan to double the intake of non-local undergraduates in the 2024-2025 academic year. As the non-local student population in Hong Kong will increase from 3,000 to 6,000 in a year, the student body’s composition is anticipated to undergo a significant change.
The percentage of HKU non-local undergraduate students has increased from 9.1% in early 2000 to an expected 28.6% in 2024.”
-Lan Holiday, Vice-President of Teaching and Learning at HKU.
According to HKU statistics, Mainland China students were the dominant source of these non-local students, accounting for 59.6% of HKU non-local undergraduates in 2022-23.
In terms of the imbalance, Holiday commented, “How to allocate non-local UG quota is always an important issue. HKU tries to split it 50% and 50% between Mainland and international students. The school hasn’t been able to do it in the last few years due to COVID-19 but is confident to achieve it in the future. A possible change is to allocate quotes based on the program with a cut-off score, so Different apartments and faculty can decide on the quotes on their own.”
Grace Hnin Oo Wai, a HKU undergraduate from Myanmar, pointed out that to achieve the goal, HKU should increase its overseas awareness and provide more financial support for international students.”People around me wonder why I chose this university and how I can live in such an expensive city. Without Cantonese and Mandarin, it is very hard to find a part-time job.”
Turning eyes to Hong Kong, the quotes for local undergraduate students remained the same, 15,000, under the policy.
“Hong Kong local students can benefit from this. We are not eating into the provision for locals, but enabling them to have a more diverse and international environment,” said Holiday with a smile.
However, Derek Cho, a year-5 local student who experienced the change brought by non-local students’ expansion, raised concern about the conflict of more students and limited campus resources.
“There are long queues everywhere–canteens, entrance, each elevator. We cannot find a place for lunch.”
-Derek Cho, a local undergraduate student
“It is also concern by many students and staff whether they can maintain the current teaching and learning quality,” said Cho, support is needed for the raising student number on campus.”
The trend of “Mainlandization” is another significant concern.
With the rising number of mainland undergraduates and postgraduates, Zixi Zhou, a year-2 mainland undergraduate, said that the possible challenge is mainland students’ excessive pursuit of a single standard, such as a high GPA and good internship.
This might cause meaningless involution which shortens campus diversity. Students should enjoy the diverse routes rather than simply following and competing with each other.”
So, what should be the next step of internationalization?
“What we need to look at is a direct range of different cultures and different student body. 40% of students come from China, then Myanmar means to be diverse. We want more diverse cultural backgrounds,” said Fu Kingwa, a HKU professor.
“Internationalization also means whether or not we can create an environment where we can do the same thing in the natural campuses around the world. Students can freely discuss any topics and share rich resources,” Fu concluded.
Reported by Athena Zhou Zixi
Edited by George Clark