David C Lam Institute for East-West Studies

Hong Kong Baptist University
19 November 1998

Welcome Address by Dr Edgar W K Cheng JP,
Chairman, University Grants Committee

Dr Lam, Prof Ginkel, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I was delighted to be invited to participate in this event with academics from over 20 countries and Hong Kong meeting to share experiences in international collaboration in higher education.

The University Grants Committee, of which I have been Chairman since April this year, is itself a prime example of such collaboration, comprising as it does members from four continents and from double that number of different countries and territories, as well as of course from Hong Kong and mainland of China. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Committee has long supported the development of international linkages by the institutions it funds. More recently, indeed, the Committee has argued for the development of Hong Kong as a regional centre for higher education - more on that later.

First, however, I should like to extend a particularly warm welcome to our overseas colleagues, many of whom I know are frequent visitors to Hong Kong, and particularly to those from the OECD's IMHE programme which is sponsoring the present workshop.

This event is also a somewhat sad occasion, as you may be aware, because of the recent untimely death of Jan Karel Gevers. I did not have the good fortune to meet Prof Gevers, but I have heard nothing but the most positive reports of him from those, including the UGC Secretary-General Nigel French, who did. I think it is a very suitable and touching gesture that the organisers have dedicated this workshop to Prof Gevers' memory.

Hong Kong is well-known as a place where East meets West, a gateway to and from China and an ideal base for dealings in many fields with the mainland of China and other countries in the South and East Asian region. The unique environment thus created here offers unrivalled opportunities for our young people to broaden their horizons. Nevertheless, without international collaboration and overseas participation in our education system, in particular the higher education system, our students could easily become introverted and lose sight of the broader picture of what is happening in the outside world.

International involvement in our higher education system occurs in a variety of ways. The most obvious is through recruitment or exchange of staff and students from overseas. During our recent expansion phase, when we doubled the number of first degree places and tripled the number of postgraduate places in a period of just five years, our tertiary institutions were fortunate to be able to recruit many distinguished academics from all over the world - some 3,500 faculty in all. Needless to say these new colleagues have brought with them an extensive network of international contacts. Partly as a result of this, academic exchanges with overseas countries and the mainland of China have also been growing apace.

Our tertiary institutions have also been active recently in recruiting international students and organising exchange programmes so that local students can interact with their counterparts from other parts of the world. International students can be admitted to different types and levels of programme: that is to undergraduate, taught postgraduate or research postgraduate programmes. However, at least until recently, they have predominantly been research students, many of them from the mainland of China. Now, with further encouragement from the Government and the UGC, more overseas students are being recruited at undergraduate level - as for example in a recent programme here at the Hong Kong Baptist University involving some 32 students from 8 countries. Moreover, with the generous support of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust (which is providing HK$ 150 million for bursaries), a programme has just this year been launched to attract students from the mainland to join Hong Kong universities as undergraduates.

By these and others means, we see great opportunities for Hong Kong to act increasingly as a regional centre for both initial and continuing higher education, not just for the mainland of China, but also for other neighbouring countries. Hong Kong has got a lot to offer. Besides our impressive faculty and well-equipped institutions, we are endowed with an open, free and cosmopolitan society, superb infrastructure, and the best communications network in Asia. This combination presents, I believe, an attractive prospect for potential students, which will be enhanced when we have completed construction of the 11,000 more student hostel places aimed in part at providing all non-local students with on-campus housing during their programme of study here. Now, if we could just clear the pollution a bit, everything would be perfect.

Looking at the picture the other way round, students in Hong Kong have for many years had access to higher education programmes offered by overseas institutions, on their own or in collaboration with local institutions. Such programmes have long been provided here in response to the aspirations of many people in our society for continuing education and professional development. In recent years, rising community concerns about the academic standards of some of these programmes prompted the Hong Kong Government to enact legislation aimed at assuring their quality. The cumbersomely named Non-local Higher and Professional Education (Regulation) Ordinance, which came into effect in 1997, seeks to ensure that the standard of such courses offered in Hong Kong is maintained at a comparable level to that which is applicable in the country where the relevant overseas tertiary institution is situated, and that such standard is recognised as such by the overseas tertiary institution concerned and by the accrediting authority or academic community in that country.

Interestingly, in the context of the present workshop, this legislation specifically exempts from registration overseas courses offered in collaboration with local tertiary institutions, provided that the local partner can give similar assurances about the quality of the overseas course delivered in Hong Kong. - A very real form of recognition of one type of academic consortium!!

Of course, the main area of collaboration between Hong Kong academia and the rest of the world is still in research - in other words the international fellowship of scholarship and intellectual inquiry. With the development of new and expanded research capabilities, fostered by new academic and applied research funding schemes sponsored by the Hong Kong Government and the UGC, the last decade has seen a rapid growth in research and the development of a thriving research culture in Hong Kong's universities. In recognition and support of this expanded research capacity here, three joint research schemes have been established in recent years between the Hong Kong Research Grants Council and appropriate bodies in the UK, Germany and France. We welcome more of this kind of international collaboration.

The development and maintenance of such international collaborations, and its benefits to students and tertiary institutions, do not come without effort and diligence. This workshop is an example of the effort involved. It represents an important forum where experts can meet and share experiences, with a view to systematically developing and furthering such collaboration. I wish you all a most productive workshop.

Thank you.