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Future for mainland students

By Lau Nai-keung (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-10-14 10:10

It is back to school for university students in Hong Kong, and campuses will host more students from the mainland. This year, about 10 per cent of the student population comes from the north.

After rapid expansion of the mainland's university system in recent years, it is now entering a period of consolidation. A university degree no longer guarantees even a decent job, and competition among universities will become intense. Unlike business enterprises, academic institutions have to build on quality, and quality alone. Good universities are always in short supply, and only the not so good have to worry for their survival.

The abovementioned 10 per cent amounts to less than 1,000 students in absolute terms. It is a drop in the bucket among millions of university students in the country, and will never be sizable enough to affect the status of top mainland schools like Peking University.

It is worth mentioning that higher education is a two-way street. Whilst more talented mainland students are coming to Hong Kong to pursue their higher education, it is also becoming more popular for brilliant Hong Kong students to apply at mainland universities. This healthy exchange of students works best for the country's future development.

Because of the sudden increase in students from the mainland, most universities are caught unprepared, especially regarding dormitory space. The government has allocated funding, but some of the facilities are not available on time. As a result, a few local students are being squeezed out, leading to a series of protests in various campuses. Some mainland students are now temporarily being housed in makeshift quarters.

Apart from this, mainland students on the whole feel they are welcome here, and find the campus life to be entirely different from what they previously experienced.

First of all, Hong Kong campuses are highly cosmopolitan, with students coming from many parts of the world. Students are therefore very culturally sensitive, and none would ever feel discriminated or alienated.

Mainland students fare even better because they are Chinese, as is over 90 per cent of Hong Kong's population. The only difference is that the daily dialect here is Cantonese instead of putonghua, but putonghua is not a problem anywhere in Hong Kong, especially since the handover 10 years ago.

In addition, mainland students have now reached a critical mass and organized themselves into various students' unions and interest clubs. They will never feel lonely even if they do not want to reach out to the local community. But most mainland students do mingle well with other students, both local and international; and within a year, they all speak fluent Cantonese and English.

Mainland students will also find there is a different culture of learning in Hong Kong. Students are taught that accepted wisdom needs to be examined from different angles, and held only as temporary hypotheses until better ones come along to replace them. Unlike back home, they are encouraged to use their critical faculties and to challenge their teachers.

In these aspects, studying in Hong Kong is like studying in any top western university - but here it is in a Chinese  environment, and all the Western practices have been adapted to suit our Chinese psyche. This crossroads between East and West is uniquely Hong Kong, and this is a truly wonderful combination that cannot be found on foreign soil.

This is also one reason why some of the universities in the SAR are ranked among the top academic institutions in the world. These universities have pledged to reach the very top, and the academic achievements of some of the brightest mainland students will contribute to the accomplishment of this goal.

In their studies, they enjoy unprecedented academic freedom. Their extracurricular activities are all self-organized without any assistance - or interference - from the university authorities or the government. In fact, such training is regarded as part and parcel of university education.

Students are free to choose activities, organize them, find sponsors to finance them, and be responsible for their success or failure. Students learn a lot through such activities, and build up invaluable networks that last for a lifetime.

Ironically, many local students, for various reasons, are not very active in these extracurricular activities, and mainland students are on the whole more involved, especially in hostel organized activities. In a way, they benefit more than their local counterparts from the university education here.

Hong Kong needs high-quality manpower for its future development. The SAR's government is planning to encourage mainland students to remain after finishing their studies. With their mainland background, they are in the best position to help integrate Hong Kong's economy with the mainland.