Mainland applicants to top university down from record number in 2013

The city's premier institution of higher learning is fast losing its luster - as a simmering student union rebellion and secret payments to faculty members tarnish its reputation and keep would-be applicants away.

Times Higher Education World University Rankings editor Phil Baty said schools in Hong Kong were struggling to protect the finest traditions of education, while school rankings competitor QS World University Rankings recently downgraded the 104-year-old University of Hong Kong (HKU) to second place in the city - behind Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

The storming of the HKU Council meeting by student activists in late July along with their demands that the school's governing body be dissolved have added to concerns over the school; so, too, has the censure of opposition-linked faculty members found to have improperly accepted donations from dubious sources.

"Bad news, a crisis or major disputes will influence people's thinking and over time erode reputations and affect students when they make decisions on where to study. They might not want to be in situation where there are disputes and instability," Baty said.

Following HKU Associate Professor Benny Tai Yiu-ting's campaign to bring the city to a standstill, students have voted with their feet with applications from the mainland still declining since a record 12,513 applicants in 2013.

Just over 10,000 mainland students applied last year and there were about 9,400 applicants this academic year.

Hong Kong Institute of Education social sciences Professor Sonny Lo Shiu-hing said this was part of a wider decline seen at all schools - resulting from concerns over politics in the city.

"But HKUST has a strong reputation and is traditionally quite attractive to mainland students," he said.

"As the traditional number one in Hong Kong, (HKU) may have been a natural magnet for mainland students, thus any downturn would affect them more than others.

"Furthermore, the mainland has been investing a lot in increased capacity and its leading universities have been climbing in the rankings, which may have created some competition for Hong Kong universities," QS Intelligence Unit head of division Ben Sowter said.

United Kingdom-based QS World University Rankings placed HKUST first on its latest list of top schools in Hong Kong, moving from 40th to 28th place globally this year, while HKU slipped two places to 30th in the global rankings.

HKUST was very pleased with its improved rankings while HKU noted differing surveys had variable criteria and methodology which could be revised over time.

A change in how QS considered papers published by professors in relation to their universities' ranking affected the city's two best schools, pushing HKUST higher up the list than its rival.

The two universities were the only institutions in the city to make the list's top 50 schools, with Chinese University of Hong Kong slipping from 46th to 51st place.

QS' school ratings are based on academic reputation, employer reputation, student-to-faculty ratios, international student and faculty ratios as well as citations per faculty.

While Sowter said it was too soon to know whether politics at the school had affected HKU's rank, QS' shift in local rankings was attributed to changes in how citations per faculty were weighted. More regard was given to engineering, social sciences and technology over a traditional bias in favor of life sciences and medicine papers.

While regional competitors Japan, Singapore and South Korea also have two schools each in the top 50, Hong Kong's schools remain very competitive globally. This was due to the SAR's geographic location within reach of most of Asia as well as a continued tradition of publishing in English and intra-disciplinary cooperation, Sowter said.

tim@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 09/16/2015 page7)