Home > UGC Publications > Press Releases > 2014 > UGC Chairman welcomes Policy Address initiative to increase senior-year undergraduate places

UGC Chairman welcomes Policy Address initiative to increase senior-year undergraduate places

The Chairman of the University Grants Committee (UGC), Mr Edward Cheng, warmly welcomed the Chief Executive's initiative to progressively increase the publicly funded senior-year undergraduate intake places by 1 000 to 5 000 in UGC-funded institutions by the 2018/19 academic year, as announced in the Policy Address today (January 15).

Mr Cheng said, "I am very pleased with and appreciate the new initiative in the Chief Executive's Policy Address on increasing progressively the intake of publicly funded senior-year undergraduate places in UGC-funded institutions by a total of 1 000 places by the 2018/19 academic year.

"This would foster a flexible, diversified and multiple-entry, multiple-exit education framework with greater interflow between the self-financing and publicly funded sectors, and between the sub-degree and degree levels."

He added, "The Government is already progressively increasing the UGC-funded senior-year undergraduate intake places from 2 000 to 4 000 per annum in the current 2012/13 to 2014/15 triennium. I am grateful for the Chief Executive's continued commitment to higher education by providing more opportunities for meritorious sub-degree graduates' articulation to the last two years of a UGC-funded undergraduate programme through progressively increasing the number of places by a further 1 000 as announced today."

Mr Cheng said that the UGC would work with the eight UGC-funded institutions in the academic planning process for the 2015/16 academic year and the 2016/17 to 2018/19 triennium, with a view to forming recommendations to the Government on how best to put the student places, including these additional ones, to the most effective use.

The Chief Executive announced today that, from the 2015/16 academic year and in the triennium that follows, the intake of senior-year undergraduate places in UGC-funded institutions will progressively increase by a total of 1 000 places so that 5 000 meritorious sub-degree graduates will be able to articulate to subsidised degree programmes each year by the 2018/19 academic year.