Symposium Session One: Towards Excellence in Higher Education

Venue: RM408, Meng Wah Building, The University of Hong Kong

Date: 3 June, 2016 (09:00 – 10:30)

Opening remarks, Prof. Kai-Ming

Equity relates to access / Identity relates to unity

Higher education enrolment rates differ across different countries

Issues / Discussion topics, Dr. Jisun

Who goes higher education / vocational / community college?

Privilege and/or unprivileged groups?

Choice of public, private institutions, vocational, community college?

Who controls the access?

State control in China

Who does (should) pay for higher education?

Parents or government?

For Public / Private institutions

Rising tuition fees around the globe

But different systems

Germany: the government now charges a low level of tuition fees

South Korea: high tuition fees for private universities

How do people get access for HE?

National Examinations? Is this a good system?

Affirmative action?

Who stays/ leaves in HE?

Changing student profiles

Dropout rate / policy at different levels

Singapore example, Mr. Charles

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Meritocracy: There are a certain number of places at public universities

Admission determined by grades in examinations

First choice goes to public universities (most competitive in terms of admission)

Second choice is lower tier universities or private universities

Another option is to stay in Singapore and get an overseas degree from an

foreign university operating in Singapore

However, these certificates not widely recognized by the pubic or

employers

Another option are polytechnic institutions

Aim to prepare students for the labour market by providing more vocational

skills

However, the trend is that graduates rush into universities (public first, then

private, private tuition usually four times than public)

Government offered a new direction - focus on skills and contributions, not

qualifications

Socio-economic background matters

For less privileged students, access to higher education is not easy

Symposium Session Two: Towards Excellence in Higher Education

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Venue: RM408, Meng Wah Building, The University of Hong Kong

Date: 3 June, 2016 (11:00 – 12:30)

Group presentations: 10 minutes each

Group 1

Group members: Macao, Mongolia, Malaysia, and Nigeria

Topic: Access to higher education

Difficult to get a higher education quota

How to handle the situation?

Overseas study

Create more places, expand the HE system

Get private sector to involved, but there are quality problems

Private and public partnership

Subsidize private unit, student loans (Macao)

How to ensure access for rural students?

Special schools

Beside national exam, there can be regional exams

Function of private higher education

It is getting better in Macao

Competition to access public higher education in Nigeria

Not good quality, foreign partners coming in to mine gold in Mongolia

Internationalization

New generation in China: rely on young professors and students

Policy of student exchange, Mongolia

Group 2

China

Jiangsu and Hubei Province: state funded system; move quota to other areas

Equality issue: Social concern (disadvantaged background); wealth related;

beyond exam scores

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Case 3: internationalization: Outbound-disruption/ inbound-cultural pride/

cultural minded society

Cambodia

Public-national entrance exam, especially for science students

Private-internal entrance exam

Laos: Laos adds up minorities

Gender issue: scholarship

Multicultural society

Internationalization affects the identify of higher education: has pros and cons

Group 3

Three from Mongolia, one from Cambodia, one from Ethiopia, one from South

Korea, and from Taiwan

All have similar problems

Some policy needed to fill the regional gap: default position

Urban and rural area differences

Access and equity issues

Who get access to what kind of HE:

competition starts from the secondary level

those with good family backgrounds have better chances

government scholarship policy (Cambodia) has not really worked out

How to widen access to HE? Disadvantaged groups in each country

Diversity in Ethiopia

Gender issue

Cambodia, no religious complexity, but there are cultural issues (many girls

are kept at home, not allowed to study)

Mongolia: there are more female students study in HE institutions, because

men can easily get a job without higher education degree

Private education in each country

Cambodia: getting better because of the unified criteria

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Taiwan: improving

It is important to take into consideration the context; equity issue; social mobility;

Group 4

Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia

Case 1: China

Make available provisions

Government policy may be right, but implementation may be wrong

Case 3: two different scenarios

Brain drain

Import & export students

Bring in people with more similar profile

Who gets access?

Whether there are provisions for alternative pathways?

Group 5

Two Mongolian, one Cambodian, and one Argentinian

Who should shoulder the cost of education? Public or commercialized goods?

Access and equity policy: the underlying policy?

Concern over access and equity

Case 1: negative/pessimistic; more about equity;

Case 2: how to promote academic achievement?

Case 3: the policy failed; internationalization or regionalization would

continuously be an issue

Remarks:

Dr. Jamil Salmi

Equity: difficult issue to solve

False assumptions: Free higher education would be an equitable way

Merit system is not always equitable

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Merit and equity: limited resources to the best students is fair.

Competitive entrance examination decides which school to go is like animals

competing (elephant, monkey, donkey, etc.) to climb a tree.

Not all prepared in the same way, which affects the chance to get admitted.

Intellectual simulation: brain size is difference for kids 3-year-old in poor and

rich family

Equality of Access

Make sure once entering tertiary education, same opportunity to be

successful

Factors, e.g. wealth of parents, gender, color, age, etc., should not be

obstacles

Why care about equity?

Justice dimension: human right, social right

Pure economic efficiency viewpoint: Resources, talent, potential

Example:

Nobel prize winner is the second choice of scholarship

Chris Langan, IQ 195,

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

When talking about equity, not worry enough about non-monitoring dimension

When thinking about equity, dimensions involved: Academic preparation,

information, motivation, to study in imperial higher education institution

Example of India

Two groups of students invited: from higher and lower class

What results are expected? - Answers show similar results

Being reminded with their inferior position – different results showed up

Philosophies are set up in schools

Role of private sector: good or not?

Good and bad private sectors: good and bad quality

Can compensate

Need to make it good quality and equitable

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It is good quality but it’s expensive

Money talks: Find way to promote equity in private sector

Quota: Mexico, Syria, Brazil

REACH program: to help prepare secondary students from lower-income

families to get accepted by universities

Gender gap

Rate of enrollment: over representation of girls

Not an issue any more, except in South Asia and Sab Sahara Africa

Motivation: variety of profession portrait

Gap of gender: imbalance in terms of university leadership positions: few

female rectors and university presidents

Regional issues

Same resources? Same top professors?

Regional does not mean they are in secondary place

Inequality problems start from classrooms, kindergartens.

Example of Shanghai

Only take the poorest students in the area

Rate of graduates to go to good a university is higher than Shanghai average

Professor Cheng Kai Ming

Three questions:

What is wanted - social aspiration

What is needed - manpower requirements

What is affordable - who pays what

Every country wants to expand higher education

Weak voices: are we producing too many university graduates? Many

graduates are unemployed.

In HK, some voice is we do not want university, we want middle level

education.

Does not go very far

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Social aspiration and manpower requirement do not come in turn.

1965, Robin’s report (UK), suggesting that with the trend of expanding

higher education, those who are able and willing should get a place.

The trend of social aspiration is even greater, there seems to be no end of

expansion

Should there be a ceiling for higher education expansion?

Where should be the ceiling?

The concept is changing rather quickly and dramatically.

The rate of return to higher education is dropping. However, the drop perhaps

is a good thing if you think about equitable issue.

This is a changing society: 20/30 years from now, how many in the societies

will survive with higher education? The requirement of the society will be

quite different.

What are the steps of the ladder to internationalization?

First level, one way communication

The last level, international campus

In between, there are many levels. A critical moment, the university may not

want to go further. The turning point is usually the language.

Fundamental issue for many societies are the same

Symposium Session Three: Towards Excellence in Higher Education

Venue: RM408, Meng Wah Building, The University of Hong Kong

Date: 3 June, 2016 (14:00 – 17:30)

Quality and Relevance

What are the three important things in education to you?

Spirituality-to guide activity

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Equity-treat everybody fairly

Quality-excellence in education

Four cases

Outcome based assessment - measure achievements in Higher Education

through outcomes

The league table - rankings

Professorship of practice

Quality assurance

Ranking system

Academic life has changed

Ten years ago, for academics, there were 3 mission: teaching /research /

community service

Now, there are more requirements from government for universities to do

certain missions, e.g. to publish more (Social Science Citation Index

syndrome); to give more courses in English;

Does quality mean high ranking, more publications, and more researches?

Group discussion presentation:

Group 1

Focus on three key words: mission, quality and ranking

Aims of higher education: teaching, research, service

Macao: unique aims

Focus on Secondary and Higher Education

Citizenship education

Specific area/ tourism

No comprehensive university/ no medical faculty at Macao University

Ethiopia: specialized mission

Two missions; poverty eradication, economic development

Community interest

Courses are designed for that particular purposes

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Planned for two world class universities

Two new universities

Has shifted from ministry of education to science and technology

Mongolia: different aims because of special political context

Has 100 universities

Focus on man power development

Three aims: teaching, research, equity and access

Very much contextualized, hard to generalize

Quality

Quality matters, but not the end of higher education

Depends on the development of the state of higher education

Higher education is interpreted differently in different contexts

Macao: small size system, rely on external reviewer; the system works well

so far

Ethiopia: important to train young people to contribute to the country; the

country does not have the field and enough jobs for graduates, because it is

all related with economic status and development stage

Mongolia: trying to set up independent agencies

Ranking

The group is not exactly against ranking

But, is pretty much against indicators

Not enough collaboration between industry and universities

As for social contribution, it is not considered in less-developed countries

Case 6

Think about how to make academics contribute to the community

Group 2

Case 4

Outcome-based assessment

An issue of the wording

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Case 5

Revision of the management structure brings potential new quality

Without funding, research articles and international collaboration would not

be possible

Tensions: e.g. hiring foreign faculty

Risks: over emphasis on research/more focus on local issues

Ranking can be good: Political driver for promoting change

Case 6

Teachers lack engagement in teaching and research because they are taking

many jobs in different places (Cambodia)

It is important to distinguish science from the professional field.

Working experience of the faculty is valuable

Case 7

To guarantee quality, certify by international assurance entity

Research is important for teaching and learning

Good researcher do not automatically transfer into a good teacher

How to motivate teachers to do research – funding could be a solution

Evaluation of the teacher

Mongolia: evaluation is more strict

Benchmarks are potentially useful

Group 3

Four key dimensions

Aim of HE

Diversity

Vision of HE should be broad: For medical school, to become Asian class

university

Mission: Be friendly to environment

Unique vision for different types of universities

Good balance between modernity and tradition

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Quality

Balance among research, teaching and services: which should go first? No

agreement.

Ranking: university ranking and excellence of university are related but not

equal;

Consequence of ranking: to improve the quality of education; stimulus to

help university to move up;

Mechanism: how to measure quality

QA system

Two cases: outcome based assessment/quality ensured mechanism

Three layers of quality assurance

positive and negative part: university quality always lags behind the demand

of society

factors influencing quality of HE: management/ governance/ policy making/

implementation/ student quality/ salary/ funding/ pedagogy of teaching/

relationships with enterprises/ collaboration with other universities

Social impact

Should provide specialized knowledge and skills, esp. high-tech domain

Key areas can have more social impact: medical, agriculture, engineering

Employability of graduates in Mongolia: employment rate is going down

even for those who have decent degrees; employers have higher expectations

for university graduates

Four steps to enhance quality of graduates in terms of employment: analysis

of employability; more internships/double degree/more labor market oriented

program

Group 4

Assessment Outcome

Industry outcomes: internship

Based on the practical side

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Case 5

Not realistic: no resources, no funding from the government

Go for ranking, ignore what students have learnt

Career path for teachers is important

Economic consideration

What is the relationship between ranking and excellence of university?

Quantifiable indicators should be meaningful

What is the knowledge required to survive?

The collection of information is the starting point

Filter information

Research focus: publish globally and perish locally

Remind the example of animal climbing the tree

Remarks: Dr. Jamil Salmi

Ranking

Example: 2007, the World Bank was invited to help Malaysian universities to

become world-class universities

Book: The users and abusers of ranking

Ranking tells us the past, not the future

National ranking in Germany is better, list all the indicators, divide

universities into three groups

What makes the university unique is important

Benchmarking is better than ranking

Relevance: university and industry linkage

More graduates than jobs

Be aware of manpower planning

Close contact with industry: an example of 5-year guarantees to students

Comments:

Four aims of higher education

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1. Economic growth through human resource development, research and

innovation.

2. Social transformation

3. Political development

4. Cultural transmission: balance between modernity and tradition

What do you mean by quality of higher education?

Mean different things to different people

Excellence

Fitness of purpose: Unique mission

Zero defect: doing things right does not mean doing the right thing

Value for money

Transformative: outcome based assessment, but how to assess values,

attitude, etc.?

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