Competition for university places is set to intensify in Hong Kong as more than 150,000 children born in the city to mainland Chinese parents will be eligible to apply for subsidised tertiary education in the next five years.
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Former leader Leung Chun-ying, who banned mainland women from giving birth in Hong Kong starting in 2013, said on Monday that he had “no solution” to potential problems, as the children were entitled to subsidised university places.
But the “predicament” served as a reminder over the current talent admission policies, which bore similar “unplanned consequences”, he said.
Hong Kong experienced a “baby boom” from 2006 to 2012, helped partly by children who were born to mainland parents in the city after a landmark court ruling in 2001 declared that newborns should be given the right of abode regardless of their parents’ immigration status. Most of the children went to the mainland for their foundation education.
According to the government, 150,139 children born from 2008 to 2012 to parents who were not Hong Kong residents were eligible to apply for subsidised university places after sitting the Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) exams in the next five years.
After the government banned mainland women from giving birth in the city in 2013, the number of newborns dropped drastically to 790.