CRI听力:HK Universities Recruit More Mainland Students

Double the number of Hong Kong's high-school graduates will enter universities this coming September as a result of the city's education reform. As universities in Hong Kong are allowed to have up to 20% non-local students, it's estimated that the recruitment from the mainland this year may increase to 1,600 from 1,400 last year.

Grace Chow Chan Man-Yuen is the director of Admission and Financial Aid with The Chinese University of Hong Kong . She says her university will not expand mainland recruitment largely this year due to limited housing facilities. But starting this year, they will begin recruiting students from Qinghai, Xinjiang and Tibet.

"We'll recruit about 300 students from the mainland, pretty much the same quota as last year. We also have additional quota for the regions where there are exceptionally good students."

Although the Chinese University of Hong Kong won't have much increase in their mainland recruitment, some other Hong Kong universities have announced plans of expansion. For example, Hong Kong University will expand their quota by 240 students or more. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University will increase their mainland recruitment to 280, from 240 last year.

On average, it costs a non-local student the equivalent of about 20,000 US dollars a year to study in a Hong Kong university, which is much more expensive than going to a mainland university. Many students try to get various scholarships.

Grace Chow Chan Man-Yuen says The Chinese University of Hong Kong will offer scholarships to about one third of new recruits from the mainland this September.

"One category is full scholarship. We offer free tuition, plus 40 to 50 thousand HK dollars of living and education subsidies. The other category is just free tuition, for which students don't have to pay any tuition fees in the next four years."

She also says that mainland graduates are quite popular among multi-national companies in Hong Kong as they can speak mandarin, English and Cantonese, and they know better than their Hong Kong peers about the direction that the country is going.

"Take last year for example. 60% of mainland graduates from our university found very good jobs in Hong Kong and stayed here. About 3 percent went back to the mainland to work. The rest of them continue to study further degrees either in Hong Kong or other universities."

Starting this September, Hong Kong's undergraduate curriculum will grow from three years to four years. Students from the mainland will no longer have to go through one year of prep course. They will directly join the local students for the first year, instead.

For CRI, I'm Xu Weiyi from Hong Kong.