Cheung Ying Fung Emily

14064787d
Class: ELC1012 S01 SEM001
Assessment number: 2
Word count: 882
Topic: Education and Hong Kong
Narrowed topic: Tertiary education should be compulsory for all students in Hong
Kong. To what extent do you agree with this view?
Nowadays, more and more students graduated from secondary school takes
tertiary education in order to access the universities and seek for employment. In
facts, the proportion of human resources with post-secondary education in population
is increased from 18.5% in 2000 to 25.4% in 2010 (Hong Kong Census and Statistics
Department, 2011). Tertiary education, including higher diploma, associate degree,
degree and postgraduate programs, is in demand as employers recommend
recruiting a higher education level person. Although offering higher education to
entire students may be fair to them, the idea is impractical due to the public treasury
shortage. In addition, it should be banned as some of the certificates would be
unidentified caused by the popularization of post-secondary education. The
compulsory tertiary education has become a controversial issue in Hong Kong
consequently and the reasons why it should be banned will be clarified in the
following paragraphs.
Since Hong Kong is a city of knowledge-driven economy, the compulsory tertiary
education is believed to be beneficial. The global economy has suffered momentous
changes so that Hong Kong government is putting effort on manufacturing,
distributing, and making use of expertise. These are the important poles supporting
the economic development such as property raising, financial growth and recruitment
of all businesses in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department
(2011) asserted that the significant elements of an intellectual society is concerning
to investing funds on specialized field like Information and Communication
Technology (ICT), strengthen labours capability, and upgrading the skills of
innovation and technology. It has shown that the development in Hong Kong
considerably depends on citizens standard of knowledge and ability which relevant
indivisibly to fulfillment of education. In regard, Hong Kong requires adequate
attainment of labour power and usually job applicants with superior academic
background will be considered priority. When labour received tertiary education,
Hong Kong will be well-developed and gain an international prestige. As a result, all
students should study in post-secondary for social progress.
On the other hand, junior colleges will be flooding in Hong Kong and lower the
quality of tertiary education despite the demand problem would be eliminated after
accomplishing it. This will adversely affects the authenticity of an academic degree.
Community colleges is spreading today and the phenomenon has created a delusion
that the mass advanced education has been achieved seemingly. Majority of
community colleges, provided by various organizations such as private universities,
charitable foundations and universities funded by The University Grants Committee
of Hong Kong (UGC), attempt chiefly 2 years bachelor degrees and other similar
condensed curriculum though the multitude deny those schools compared with the
established institutes. Owing to insistence on the policy of the Government, those

colleges is operating with a limited cost self-financially (Kember, 2010). Eventually,

the amount of colleges expanded is in inverse ratio to their quality.
If the obligatory post-secondary schooling has been implemented, the colleges will
be unreliable and with poor quality. The community colleges commit the least
possible of expenditure therefore the facilities are always insufficient. Kember (2010)
described that they can only rent commercial buildings divided with plaza or offices
for finite tutoring area at the beginning by reason of the narrow structure of the
architecture. Apart from the drawback of limited space resources, the proportion
between college student and professor will be heighten and lead to cancellation of
high consumption activities such as researches and experiments if all students are
regulated to attend tertiary courses. The education programme will be vague, general
and inferior. Kember (2010) also revealed that companies prefer hiring teenagers
with higher grades in A-level to associate degree graduates because employers
assume that an associate degree is an alternative opportunity to enter the university
instead of terminal academic proves. Resultantly, the compulsory tertiary education is
inappropriate to be launched in Hong Kong otherwise the irregular colleges will be
inundated and the values of associate degrees will be reduced.
In other respects, not every student can handle the advanced education which is
exist for passionate learner who are capable of facing challenge and obtaining new
knowledge. Besides, students should have their rights to choose their future and
make decision of receiving higher education or not. According to the annual survey
related to happiness, conducted by the Center for Public Policy Studies of Lingnan
University in 2005, better educated people are less cheerful. Ho (2011) reported that
post-secondary education may not grant for training a kindhearted college students
and how to interpretation the value of human life. Tertiary education is not everything
of teens future. On account of the choice youngsters ought to possess, tertiary
education should not be compulsory.
This essay has pointed out the negative impact of the compulsory tertiary
education. Scott, Kaiser, Weert and Trow (as cited in Louise, 2014) believes that in
case Hong Kong is persist in implementing the compulsory tertiary education, it
requires vague edges and innovative provision. Louise (2014) also emphasize that
Hong Kong population has been reluctant to embrace this degree of fuzziness. In
spite of the post-secondary schooling brings profit to the society progress, it
produces further troubles. For instance the quality of the colleges will decrease under
competition and causes degraded of the associate degrees. Aside from these,
thoughts and ability of students needs to be considered seriously too. Thus, the
tertiary education should not be compulsory.
References
Ho, L. S. (2011). Hong Kong's happiness indices: What they tell us about LIFE?
Journal of Socio-Economics, 40(5), 564-572.
Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department (2011). Hong Kong as a KnowledgeBased Economy. Science and Technology.
Kember, D. (2010). Opening up the road to nowhere: Problems with the Path to Mass
Higher Education in Hong Kong. Higher Education, 59(2), 167-179
Louise, H. (2014). Policy change, public attitudes and social citizenship: Does
neoliberalism matter? Policy Press.