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We appreciate that the community we serve is, quite properly, concerned that the publicly funded institutions of tertiary education are indeed providing value for money (VFM), and we fully accept that a VFM audit is a perfectly valid mechanism of addressing issues of cost effectiveness. However, we also believe that, in order to understand the resultant report of this VFM audit in its proper context, we should remind ourselves of the academic, moral and social values of university education, especially if the conclusions and the recommendations of such a report are to be used as a basis for policy decisions on the funding of tertiary education.
Many of our fellow citizens would agree that the 'value' the tertiary education institutions provide is multifaceted. Our mission for the discovery and transmission of knowledge and understanding entails a continuum of academic activities. A defining characteristic of a university is that those academics who work in it must be engaged in both teaching and research, because research informs teaching and the learning and teaching enterprise, involving as it does intellectual interaction with young minds, stimulates ideas for research. Accordingly, any attempt to delineate the academic enterprise into disjoint silos of distinctive activities, for assessment purposes using different criteria, has to be viewed with circumspection.
To take the example of the operation of student hostels – although it is technically a self-financing activity, as a campus-based University, we endeavour to provide a hall education that is part and parcel of our efforts in fostering leadership skills and cultivating a holistic, whole-person education for the benefit of our society. The value-addedness of the hall education to an undergraduate qualification could be undermined by a purely financial consideration of this activity.
Some critics have said that when benchmarking with the cost of tertiary education in some overseas countries, that in Hong Kong appears high. We are not convinced that such a conclusion is entirely valid, especially when the cost of living in Hong Kong is factored into the comparison. Indeed, if it were possible to compare solely those costs related to students, a different conclusion might be drawn. Another important factor that should be borne in mind is that the pool of talents available locally is limited. Tertiary education institutions in Hong Kong will, for the foreseeable future, have to continue to recruit internationally for academic staff if they are to compete at the highest level. Some of these candidates, especially from developed countries like Australia, Canada, US and UK, are used to a quality of life that is not available in Hong Kong and which accordingly has to be compensated for by other means.
We welcome the Audit Commission's recommendation that the use of crude average student unit cost as a basis for funding tertiary education should be critically reviewed by the UGC. The direct comparisons of unit costs might be meaningless since unit costs, calculated by a simple computation of the annual expenditure divided by the total full-time-equivalent number of students, are affected by many factors, including: the tertiary education system (e.g. unlike in the U.S., school leavers in Hong Kong can embark on a professional first degree like law and medicine), the local environment (e.g. in Hong Kong graduates are expected to be bi-literate and tri-lingual and such language skills have to be fostered at the tertiary level, whereas in most European countries nearly all university entrants are already multi-lingual), teaching methods (e.g. small class size and the use of problem-based learning are more resource intensive), the scale of operation (e.g. better economy of scale could be achieved if there were fewer universities in Hong Kong but of larger sizes). These are significant factors that cannot be dismissed in a simple comparison of 'cost' that purports to lead to a conclusion of 'worth'.
As a key player in transforming Hong Kong into a knowledge-based society and economy, the University of Hong Kong and our sister institutions will continue to strive to excel in our academic endeavours. We sincerely hope that the community would value our contributions and trust that the investments in us are indeed value for money and worthy of continual support.
For enquiries, please contact Miss Polo Leung of HKU's External Relations Office at (852) 2859 2600.
HKU's Response to the VFM Audit Report on the Funding of Tertiary Education
26 Nov 2003
The University of Hong Kong welcomes the publication today (November 26, 2003) of the report of the Audit Commission on the audit review of the funding of tertiary education.
We appreciate that the community we serve is, quite properly, concerned that the publicly funded institutions of tertiary education are indeed providing value for money (VFM), and we fully accept that a VFM audit is a perfectly valid mechanism of addressing issues of cost effectiveness. However, we also believe that, in order to understand the resultant report of this VFM audit in its proper context, we should remind ourselves of the academic, moral and social values of university education, especially if the conclusions and the recommendations of such a report are to be used as a basis for policy decisions on the funding of tertiary education.
Many of our fellow citizens would agree that the 'value' the tertiary education institutions provide is multifaceted. Our mission for the discovery and transmission of knowledge and understanding entails a continuum of academic activities. A defining characteristic of a university is that those academics who work in it must be engaged in both teaching and research, because research informs teaching and the learning and teaching enterprise, involving as it does intellectual interaction with young minds, stimulates ideas for research. Accordingly, any attempt to delineate the academic enterprise into disjoint silos of distinctive activities, for assessment purposes using different criteria, has to be viewed with circumspection.
To take the example of the operation of student hostels – although it is technically a self-financing activity, as a campus-based University, we endeavour to provide a hall education that is part and parcel of our efforts in fostering leadership skills and cultivating a holistic, whole-person education for the benefit of our society. The value-addedness of the hall education to an undergraduate qualification could be undermined by a purely financial consideration of this activity.
Some critics have said that when benchmarking with the cost of tertiary education in some overseas countries, that in Hong Kong appears high. We are not convinced that such a conclusion is entirely valid, especially when the cost of living in Hong Kong is factored into the comparison. Indeed, if it were possible to compare solely those costs related to students, a different conclusion might be drawn. Another important factor that should be borne in mind is that the pool of talents available locally is limited. Tertiary education institutions in Hong Kong will, for the foreseeable future, have to continue to recruit internationally for academic staff if they are to compete at the highest level. Some of these candidates, especially from developed countries like Australia, Canada, US and UK, are used to a quality of life that is not available in Hong Kong and which accordingly has to be compensated for by other means.
We welcome the Audit Commission's recommendation that the use of crude average student unit cost as a basis for funding tertiary education should be critically reviewed by the UGC. The direct comparisons of unit costs might be meaningless since unit costs, calculated by a simple computation of the annual expenditure divided by the total full-time-equivalent number of students, are affected by many factors, including: the tertiary education system (e.g. unlike in the U.S., school leavers in Hong Kong can embark on a professional first degree like law and medicine), the local environment (e.g. in Hong Kong graduates are expected to be bi-literate and tri-lingual and such language skills have to be fostered at the tertiary level, whereas in most European countries nearly all university entrants are already multi-lingual), teaching methods (e.g. small class size and the use of problem-based learning are more resource intensive), the scale of operation (e.g. better economy of scale could be achieved if there were fewer universities in Hong Kong but of larger sizes). These are significant factors that cannot be dismissed in a simple comparison of 'cost' that purports to lead to a conclusion of 'worth'.
As a key player in transforming Hong Kong into a knowledge-based society and economy, the University of Hong Kong and our sister institutions will continue to strive to excel in our academic endeavours. We sincerely hope that the community would value our contributions and trust that the investments in us are indeed value for money and worthy of continual support.
For enquiries, please contact Miss Polo Leung of HKU's External Relations Office at (852) 2859 2600.
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