Home > FAQs > Recurrent Funding > What is "Competitive Allocation"? Will it have any impact on institutional autonomy? Will it marginalize programmes or disciplines with lesser student demand?
What is "Competitive Allocation"? Will it have any impact on institutional autonomy? Will it marginalize programmes or disciplines with lesser student demand?
- "Competitive Allocation" is a performance-based allocation mechanism adopted since the planning for the 2009-12 triennium, whereby a small portion of first-year-first-degree (FYFD) places of each university are set aside for re-allocation among all to reflect comparative merit of universities' Planning Exercise Proposals (PEPs) for the next triennium. The remaining bulk (over 90%) of their FYFD places are unaffected.
- Its primary objective is twofold: (i) To encourage universities strategically to think through their whole institutional endeavour, in particular its academic priorities, further to enhance their role; and (ii) To advance universities' international competitiveness in line with their role, and the higher education sector as a whole. Places redistributed can also make room for accommodating universities' proposals for new programmes.
- Universities themselves are the ones to determine their own academic priorities, and the UGC does not dictate which discipline(s) to strengthen/curtail. Therefore, Competitive Allocation does not affect institutional autonomy.
- Student demand is not the sole factor universities should take into consideration when deciding on their academic priorities. In fact, among the criteria the UGC adopt in evaluating universities' PEPs, transmission and critical appraisal of cultural values, and preservation and development of fields of knowledge for which student demand may not be high, are also regarded as one of the public role of universities.
- Further discussion on Competitive Allocation can be found at the UGC Blog: <http://www.ugc.edu.hk/minisite/eng/ugc/blog/blog20101118.htm>