Abstract The character and functions of education, particularly higher education has changed and transformed from elite to mass post-secondary education in Hong Kong. After the handover of 1997, the HK education system received a massive change in a very short period and at little cost. The two years self-finance associate degrees (AD) which provided by recently founded community college was seen as a second chance for students to obtain a place at the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong (UGC) -funded university. However, the function of AD programmes have been doubted. On the contrary to the predictions of creating knowledge-based society, the massive expansion of post-secondary education has resulted a downgrade of the values of education, and it failed to enhance the social mobility of the youth in Hong Kong. Due to the poor implementation and planning, students from non-UGC background are seen as inferior than those who are. Moreover, findings have showed that those students have severely disadvantages in terms of employability which resulting in unemployment and wage compression. This essay would critically explore the regressive nature of massification of higher education in Hong Kong.
Introduction
During the industrial period, agriculture and basic manufacturing were the major economic activities, instead of well-educated workforce, the labour force is what the society needed. Traditionally, university or higher education served the elite minority of the population. The higher education is a privilege for the upper class to remain its status quo in the society. However, globalisation and the evolution of knowledge-based society have urged the need of change in the functions and characters of education, particularly higher education. After the economic reform of China in 1978, most of the factory has moved away from Hong Kong to China in search for the cheaper cost. This has urged Hong Kong to find a new path to remain its competitiveness. As the elite system of post-secondary education does not provide enough well-educated workface for the economy to transform from post-industrial economy to one which is knowledge-based (Moretti, 2004; World Bank, 2012). Instead of the structural change of the society, Trow (1973) suggested that expanding the proportion of higher education is a tool to promote social equality. Hong Kong government has recognised the need to transform from elitist education system to massified systems in order to enhance global competitiveness and promote social equality. According to the data from University Gants Committee of Hong Kong, only 2.2% of the relevant age groups (2579 students) are able to gain a place in local university degree programmes offered by the two recognized universities in Hong Kong in 1980. In the beginning of 1990s, The Hong Kong government start to expand the higher-education sector. By establishing more new university and transforming several colleges and polytechnics to university status. The HK government has successfully increased the number of first year university degree places (Lee, 2000). By 2015, there has 8 different UGC- funded universities in Hong Kong and the figure of first year enrollment has raised significantly to 17410 (23.1% of the relevant age groups) (University Grants Committee, UGC 2016).
In 2009, Hong Kong has a major educational reform which changed the U.K likely 3-2-2-3 system to what is known as the 3-3-4 system. In the past, the 3-2-2-3 systems was seen as highly competitive and selective as only about 1/3 of the relevant age groups are able to gain a place in form 6 for the final 2 years of secondary education. However, the 3-3-4 system which comprises 3 years each of junior and senior secondary followed by 4 years for the undergraduate education, has enabled all students to complete the 6 years of secondary education.
Apart from the education system reform, Hong Kong government has also introduced the associate degrees in 2000 which aiming to increase the number of students with post-secondary qualification. The associate degrees contain 2 year of self-financing study in the recently founded community college. Students who graduated from associate degrees are ranked below undergraduate diploma and higher than high school diploma in the qualifications framework in Hong Kong (HKQF). Also, some of the best students from associate degrees might have a chance to gain a place at a UGC-funded university by the articulation system. However, the function of articulation which associate degree claimed has lost its effectiveness due to the limited places of degree programmes. Also, the graduates after 2 year associated degree do not seem to have significant advantage in employment in compare with the degree graduate and 2 year experience after high school graduate.
In contrast to the conventional hypothesis that higher education is a tool to enhance social mobility, the rapid increase of higher education in Hong Kong did not result in a more egalitarian society. In fact, various scholars believed that the most determinant is family background (Brown et al, 2011; Dale, 2015). Students from privilege background received better educational opportunities, and competitiveness in the labour market. In addition, recent evidence showed that the educational inequality has worsened. In 1991, the ratio of enrollment rate of young people from the top 10% richest families was only 1.2 times that of those living in poverty. By 2011, the same ratio has raised to 3.7 (Chou, 2013). Although the government of Hong Kong has established several universities in Hong Kong, it did not expand the support through public spending. Recent studies by social scientists have revealed that without adequate public support – even the higher education is massified – it still ineffective in providing upward social mobility due to the high tuition fee. Thus, it could be argued that the highly political higher education is poorly planned and implemented as the political elites did not provide sufficient support from public spending but strongly favour the expansion of higher education system.
This essay is divided into sixth section. In the coming section, it will discuss the nature of the massification of higher education. The third section will look at the problems of sub-degree programme by exploring the system of community college and government policies. Then, it will examine the effect of mass higher education in promoting upward social mobility and graduate employment. Last section will conclude by evaluating the significance of massification of higher education in terms of its function and character in Hong Kong.
Nature of massification of higher education
Generally, increase the participation of higher education served as a developmental perspective of national governments to boost the economies. It is a source that produce a well-trained and educated personnel for the labour market (Moretti, 2004; Lucas, 1988). After the Second World War, many developed countries were suffering from the competition of cheaper labour for the traditional industrial work in developing countries. Many of the skilled and experienced manufacturers had moved its production line from developed countries to developing countries in search for cheaper cost. To tackle the problem of structural economical change, national governments have to provide the labour market with more trained and educated labour in order to facilitate skill-biased technical change and enhance the overall productivity of the people, thereby assisting it to deal with the challenges of globalization. Also, studies have shown that the higher education massification is the most effective measure for upward social mobility. Psacharopoulos and Patrinos (2004) studied that the level of education received is strongly correlated with income. In fact, reseaches have shown that the income of university graduates is doubled than those who did not enter secondary school (Checci, 2006). Thus, a youth who completed a degree programme is in fact received a greater advantage in labour market and higher income in his/her future.
Nevertheless, recent studies have suggested significant variations among education systems. While some of the education systems might help the poor by giving them opportunity and necessary skills to share the benefits of the economic development, others might have strengthened structural inequality (Rauh, Kirchner, and Kappe, 2011). In fact, social inequality exists in channel of upward social mobility and access of higher education. In explaining the relationship between two, it is vital to look at the process of massification and the critical factor that motivate it.
From recent studies on higher education massification, they have first distinguished two different types of the process of massification which are mass nationalism and partial privatization (Ansell, 2008). The higher education systems in Hong Kong could be characterized as the latter type which has succeed on moving toward higher education massification by a low level of public spending and state subsidization. Hong Kong government has encouraged different organizations to provide additional post-secondary education mainly through self-financing basis. According to Education Commission (2000), These organizations include: 1. UGC-funded universities; 2. Private Universities; 3. The Open University; 4. Post-secondary colleges, community colleges; 5. Continuing education providers.
Aforementioned, the university enrollment rate has increased dramatically after 1990s. However, the HK government has never raised its public spending to support the higher education. Consequently, more than 50% of the students have to paid through their own means on their post-secondary education (Legislative Council Secretariat, 2012). In contrary, a mass nationalism of higher education system is characterized by high levels of coverage, public coast and state subsidization. German is an example of this type, where the higher education is funded almost completely by the government (Kaiser et al, 2014).
However, increase of public spending on higher education do not necessarily means it can achieve the desired results. According to Johnson (2006) and Ansell (2008), they both argued that the increase on public spending is regressive in nature in which it did not benefit the poor but the wealthy and middle class. Unlike vocational training, traditional higher education mainly focuses on academic but not the skills which is applicable to their future work. Also, 4 years of study means 4 years more expenses with no income. Families that suffer from insufficient financial support would find that university less attractive as an educational option. Moreover, the admission criteria are highly based on the performance and academic achievement in the public examination. According to Dale (2015), students come from wealthy or middle class background have better performance in the public examination since they have better financial resources to support their children to enjoy better education. Hence, it could be argued that the expanded higher education and increase on public spending may not be equally distributed across different social groups. Thus, we should look over the social policy that affect the conventional assumption of the progressive nature of higher education.
Consider the case in Hong Kong, the higher education has massified since 1990s. Although several university has been established, it is not enough for all the students to enroll in the UGC-Funded university. To tackle the problem, government has introduced the associate degree programmes from U.S. to provide students another option for post-secondary education. This major expansion of education is provided by the newly established community colleges which formed by a mix or combination of universities’ continuing education arms and charitable foundations. However, the function of associate degrees has been doubted. In the following section, this essay will look at how the partially privatized system affect the quality of the associate degrees programmes and discuss how such a systems consist the regressive nature of higher education.
Sub-degree programme (Associate Degree)
Since 2001, Hong Kong government has urgent needs of the higher education labour force in order to tackle the sequela of post-financial crisis. In line with the government’s on creating a knowledge-based economy and emphasis on lifelong learning, Chee-hwa Tung (2000), the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong, proposed that the post-secondary education enrolment rate should be reached to 60% within ten years, bringing the total number of places to about 55,000. In order to meet the target, government decided to develop a privatized market of self-financed sub-degrees which operated by the charitable foundations and continuing education arms. The target has been met in 2005 with participation rate of 66%. However, the rapid growth of the tertiary programmes has been criticized as lack of regulation.
According to the report from Information Portal for Accredited Post-Secondaary Programmes of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (IPAPPHKSAR, 2013), it indicated the number of graduates from the UGC-funded sub degree, self-financed sub-degree, and self-financed degree between 2001 to 2013 (Table 1.). The statistics showed that the number of supply of UGC-funded (publicly funded) sub-degree is dropping to more half. However, the number of graduates from self-financed sub-degree progammes has raised from 1,068 to 19,812. It seems that the University Grand Committee (UGC) which represent the public funding, is shrinking from providing sub-degree education but passed the responsibility to the privatized self-financed sub-degree market. As a result, the total number of sub-degree graduate has grown substantially to almost 4 times since 2001-2002.
Table 1. Statistics on full time tertiary programmes.
Row
2001-2002
2005-2006
2011-2012
2012-2013
UGC-funded sub-degree
1
Target Supply
12,585
9,330
5,591
5,345
2
Enrollment
12,201
9,070
5,605
5,541
3
No. of graduates
4,876
3,312
1,835
1,960
Self-financed sub-degree
4
No. of programme
38
233
311
315
5
Enrollment
8,895
33,276
51,796
58,694
6
No. of graduates
1,068
9,335
17,137
19,812
Total no. of sub-degree graduates (Row 3+6)
5,944
12,647
18,972
21,772
Self-financed degree
7
No. of programme
3
40
72
97
8
Enrollment
268
3,646
12,003
15,870
9
No. of graduates
0
411
5,918
7,696
Source: IPAPPHKSAR (2013); UGCHK (2003, 2006, 2007, 2014)
The government refuse to increase its public spending towards higher education but encourage private education providers to provide self-financed two-year sub-degree programmes. This system was supported by the economic and political elites because it can resolve two contradicted ideas of the reform: 1. It can enable youths to perceive higher education without increase of public spending; 2. It also retain the selectivity of publicly funded degree programmes. As UGC stated in 2002 about the opening up of self-financed sub-degree programme:
The higher education sector will need to diversify its income from public and private sectors, and then make the better use of its resources to achieve the highest quality of teaching and research. Because resources are always limited, it will be necessary to selectively identify outstanding performance where that occurs in institutions, learners, teachers and researchers, to assure they get the sufficient support to achieve international excellence in the application of their expertise.
With the exponential growth of the full-time self-financed sub-degree programmes, it could be suggested that the higher education in Hong Kong has developed as a partially privatized system in which the students have to paid their tuition fees to sustain the operations. However, the quality of these kinds of sub-degree programmes have been doubted.
In cooperate with the government policy of the privatized education system, different organizations have established several sub-degree programmes within 10 years. However, the lack of regulation by the government resulting in the lack of quality of those self-financed programmes. David (2010) has interviewed the students from the self-financed programmes, he found that the resources for the students were not enough to maintain a good quality of higher education. The facilities, for instance, some of the teaching space are renting in commercial building where outside the teaching area, it served as an office block or shopping mall. Although many of the community colleges are not built in a dedicated building in the form of tower blocks