Last week the self-financing post-secondary institution Centennial College announced it would undergo administrative restructuring. This sparked public concern about the operations of self-financing colleges. Centennial College has made it clear the proposed administrative restructuring would not affect the students. In fact, about three years ago another self-financing institution announced the termination of operations. At the same time there were not any arrangements for students to continue their studies, which caused a great deal of controversy. The institution finally agreed to let the students complete their studies before the termination of operations and the event was finally settled. However, this incident sounded an alarm about the problems facing self-financing post-secondary colleges. The incident at Centennial College occurred unexpectedly. If the college involved had not been Centennial College but some smaller college, people would not have been surprised.

Many people have misconceptions about self-financing higher education. Many believe self-financing institutions are profit-making. Clearly this is not true. Most self-financing colleges are non-profit. The emergence of self-financing institutions aims to complement government-funded university places to meet the demand for higher education. As society progresses, there is a need for a higher percentage of young people to receive higher education. However, such education is very expensive; when the government cannot afford to increase the government-funded places in higher education, self-financing institutions are the natural solution. However, the high cost of higher education means self-financing institutions have to rely heavily on revenue from tuition fees to sustain their operations since they do not receive financial support from the government. This heavy reliance on tuition fees naturally leads to dissatisfaction among students, many of whom obviously face the burden of high fees.

For self-financing colleges, admission has become a very important task, because large admission numbers mean sufficient tuition income which is crucial to their continued operation. Moreover, more students will also mean a better quality of teaching, since resources can be used in more efficient ways. For example, library resources can be shared by students and the library can be used more effectively; with more students, colleges can also offer more things for students to choose from, which is naturally good for their education. Moreover, higher enrollment also means less pressure to increase tuition fees as facilities and resources can be used more efficiently and the institution can enjoy economies of scale. From this perspective, enrollment has greater implications than just operating income.

Self-financing institutions face difficulties in regard to enrollment. Over the past four years, the total number of accredited self-financing undergraduate places has increased by 10,000. As a result, there is now a place for every student who can meet the university entrance requirements as measured by their public examination scores. In the next six years, the number of secondary school leavers is expected to further decrease, resulting in a great surplus of undergraduate places. Many people have anticipated that there will be more self-financing institutions closing down in future. The fierce competition for students will be a major test for the self-financing institutions on how well they have prepared for this.

For a self-financing educational institution on a mission, the best strategy is to maintain a reputation for strong teaching quality, a rigorous curriculum and good student performance to convince society of its worth and to gain recognition from it. The shortcut of lowering academic rigor to please students will not work. If self-financing institutions do not improve their quality but continue to try to save costs and compromise teaching quality, they will only aggravate their plight.

Admissions will be a tough exercise for the next six years, but there should be no compromises on the quality of self-financing institutions. If there are careful planning and prudent deployment plans, the self-financing institutions can survive this difficult period. The number of students will increase after these difficult six years, which will mean another scenario. Therefore, admission during these difficult years can be seen as an opportunity to enhance the quality. It is a major test for the flexibility of self-financing institutions' flexibility in regard to resource arrangements, as well as ability to undertake forward-looking planning.

Many people believe that there are too many self-financing institutions in the city. There is a need to restrict the number of self-financing degree places. In fact, all self-financing degrees are accredited through a rigorous peer review process, and the quality is well-established. However, after the Centennial College incident, I believe that self-financing institutions will be more careful in their operations. Regulatory bodies, either the senate of the eight government-funded universities or the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications, will put more emphasis on the viability of the operations of the self-financing institutions in the approval processes.

(HK Edition 05/12/2016 page8)