The recent education reform and changing governance of higher education in Hong Kong

Abstract

In recent years, there have been widespread concerns about the changing role of government and

restructuring of higher education, particularly in the context of the growing global trend of

marketization and decentralization, and the rise of knowledge-based economy with increasingly

importance given on knowledge. This research project is set against this macro social context to

examine and discuss how higher education in Hong Kong has been affected by both the globalizing

force and the overwhelming knowledge, with particular reference to the changing governance in

higher education. The principal goal of this research is to examine whether there are fundamental changes in

governance model, in terms of three governance activities of the HKSAR Government, namely:

provision, funding, and regulation. More specifically, this study focuses on the changing philosophy of

the Government in governing the higher education sector under its recent higher education reform

and the implications behind. It also concerns with how different ideological beliefs pave the way for

reforming the higher education system and shaping educational policies and developments. The data

of this research are collected through library research relying on wide-ranging secondary sources

which provide all-inclusive and concrete findings. This research discovers how higher education in Hong Kong has experienced significant changes in

the last decades, resulting into changing governance as reflected in the mentioned three governance

activities. The findings suggest that the recent higher education reform discourses mainly on public

choice, free competition, cost effectiveness, and managerial efficiency. By employing Stephen Ball’s

(1990) theory on “Education Market Place”, it finds that Hong Kong’s higher education sector is

undergoing a developmental process towards an end of ‘education market’. Through analyzing this

emerging internal market, it reveals a complete picture of the processes of marketization and

privatization of higher education under the ideology of managerialism, but it is not necessarily a

practice of decentralization. And it notes that the higher education is not entirely ‘marketized’ and

‘privatized’, which is still in a quasi state. The whole message delivered to us is a market-oriented and management-led way of reform as the

Government’s intention, which has however, misinterpreted market quest and good management as

the essence and goal of higher education reform. This will render Hong Kong’s higher education with ‘

double- failure’ in time, failing in achieving both short-term vision and long-term goal for sustainable

development.