Can Hong Kong export its higher education services to the Asian markets?

Abstract

Internationalization becomes increasingly important in higher education in a globalized world. Exporting higher education services by recruiting overseas students is an integral facet of internationalization of higher education. It not only helps develop the place as an education hub but also facilitate internationalized environment of higher education. Alongside this global trend, Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong are of no exception and have embarked on the process of internationalizing their higher education campuses by recruiting more international students, striving for achieving the policy goal of developing themselves into regional education hubs. Hong Kong has no doubt had some comparative advantages over other Asian competitors in the region but there are several major hurdles it needs to overcome before it can successfully export its higher education services. This paper reports part of a territory wide study in order to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of exporting Hong Kong's higher education to the Asian markets. In addition, to counteract the economic driven imperatives in restructuring higher education, the author would like to caution the importance of going beyond income generation and put forward a question of what the real aim and mission of internationalization of higher education are in the Asian region.

Equipping Aspiring Principals for the Principalship in Hong Kong

“…In contrast, with a view to developing Hong Kong as an education hub and increasing competitiveness of its education services in the region, the chief executive of the Hong Kong government pledged to develop education services as a new industry for economic growth (Mok and Cheung, 2011;Tsang, 2009). Since then, the neo-liberalism characterized by market-driven and entrepreneurial values has become an overriding force in the realm of primary, secondary and tertiary education (Ng, 2011). Therefore, the item, 'education as an industry', was constructed in the questionnaire.…”

World class universities and international student mobility: Repositioning strategies in the Asian Tigers

“…Nevertheless, they became places of attraction for local talents to be internationalized at home instead of seeking opportunities in prestigious degree programs abroad. The dynamics of internationalization, however, differed in view of their legacies: that is, South Korea and Taiwan, which were more influenced by the Japanese imperial university, were more captivated than Hong Kong and Singapore by the US university model in later years (O’Sullivan, 2016; Yang, 2011). The US model could be argued to have encouraged a more entrepreneurial perspective in teaching and research than the British model did (and the differences can be seen in the Tigers’ university rankings on industrial income, as shown in Table 2).…”

“…Once rooted into the political legacy of centralization, corporatization, and bureaucracy, universities in the Tiger economies were successful enough in shaping academic experiments for a different modeling (Mok, 2012a). Developing the East Asian space of world-class excellence is essential for local professors to feel equitably positioned for collaboration, exchange, and trading with their international counterparts and colleagues (Ng, 2011; Oleksiyenko et al, 2013; Takeda, 2020). Likewise, many non-local students report the attractiveness of not only the perceived quality of the institutions themselves, but also of the academic staff when considering their overseas study destination (Manning, 2019).…”

Outsourcing extra-curricular activities: a management strategy in a time of neoliberal influence

“…In Hong Kong, the notion of neoliberal values in terms of economy, marketization and competition has penetrated daily operation of the school sector. It has now become a common practice for schools to contract out some of their ECAs since the mid of the 2000s where education has been regarded as an industry (Tsang, 2007) and where neo-liberal values with regard to efficiency, economy and cost-effectiveness have exerted great impacts on Hong Kong’s education services (Ng, 2011a). However, it is criticized that insertion of commercial practice into school curriculum will deviate from the chief aims of education and shape teaching and learning in a negative way (Tang, 2015; Tamatea, 2008).…”