發佈日期: 2025-09-12 21:04

TVB News

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It is believed that Chief Executive John Lee may announce a further increase in the non-local student admission quota at public universities in next Wednesday's policy address.

Taking into consideration the current schools capacity, some legislative councillors believe the rise should not go beyond 50 percent in the short term, while there would be no limit in the long run.

They also stressed the move would not affect local candidates from entering universities.

This Kebab House that serves only certified Halal food, is one of the canteens in the Unversity of Hong Kong.

We met some non-local students having lunch there this afternoon.

This non-student said HKU is a good institution, given its high academic reputation and dynamic learning environment.

This local student said competition for hall places was keen due to increasing demand from non-local students.

Since the 2024/25 academic year, the government has allowed the eight publicly-funded universities to double the admission quotas of non-local candidates with a maximum of 40 percent of the number of local student places.

Some 17,000 non-locals were taken in, which is equivalent to 23 percent of local students.

HKU has the most non-local students, followed by Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. 

Zhang Xiang, President of the HKU said the institution received a record high of 25,000 applications for undergraduate programmes from non-local candidates for this academic cycle, marking a 25 percent rise year-on-year. 

He wishes to further expand non-local student quota, citing a diverse student body is crucial for university excellence. 

Zhang said, "To recruit the top students from all over the world, is very essential for this goal. I don't want to set, like 10 years, set the target of whatever, but we are working towards this half from mainland, half from rest of the world. I think student housing, definitely for every university, our housing is rather limited. So if you don't have a place for their stay. But HKU is addressing this issue very seriously."

Meanwhile, lawmaker Chow Man-kong who is also a senior advisor to the Provost and Deputy President of the City University of Hong Kong, said the government should consider whether the universities had enough capacity to admit more non-locals, including classrooms and student dormitories.

He estimated that the quota could be raised to 50 percent at a maximum for now, but there should not be any limit once the Northern Metropolis University Town is built.