Higher Education in Southeast Asia and Beyond #Issue 06

WILL CHINA TIGHTEN CONSTRAINTS ON HONG KONG UNIVERSITIES?
Hong Kong universities’ ability to attract
the best talent from other countries.
This would surely result in the loss of
their international prestige, academic
attractiveness and position as a regional hub.
Indirect influence
However, as mentioned earlier, all of this
does not mean that the central government
will not take any action with regard to the
demonstrations. It is likely that the following
policies and measures might be implemented in
a strategic way:
▪▪
First, the central government and
neighbouring local authorities, such as that
of Guangdong province, might create more
favourable policies to facilitate a closer and
direct collaboration between universities,
academics and students in Hong Kong
and those from mainland China.
▪▪
Second, central government, academia
and even industry representatives from
mainland China could allocate more
funding to encourage universities in Hong
Kong, their academics and students to
be involved in a wide variety of academic
activities. For example, building more
branch campuses of universities in Hong
Kong in collaboration with mainland
universities, developing more collaborative
and exchange programmes for academics
and students from Hong Kong to encourage
them to come to the mainland, and so forth.
▪▪
Finally, the possible decrease in the
number of local or Western academics
in Hong Kong’s universities could bring
more academics from mainland China to
Hong Kong and see them hired at Hong
Kong’s universities. This would absolutely
influence the administrative and academic
climate of universities in Hong Kong.
It is impossible to predict exactly what
changes might occur with regard to Hong
Kong’s universities, academics, students
and academic systems — but some
trends are apparent.
While the central government might
introduce more rigid monitoring and
stronger supervision of Hong Kong, it
will probably not take full and complete
control over the territory, including
its universities, academics, students
and institutional governance and
management, as it does on the mainland.
This article was originally published online in University World News at
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20190709094149839.
HESB | SEPTEMBER 2019 | ISSUE #06 | PAGE 39