The number of international first-year students at Hong Kong’s public universities remained below pre-pandemic levels in the last academic year despite the government doubling quotas for non-locals, with an admissions official saying Singapore has emerged as a growing education powerhouse.
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The official from a local university also said some overseas students preferred to study in Singapore over Hong Kong because the city state’s strong rankings reflected its educational status.
In Hong Kong, mainland Chinese students accounted for the biggest share of the non-local undergraduate intake, followed by those from Indonesia, South Korea and Kazakhstan, official data showed.
But students from each of these three countries made up fewer than 5 per cent of the non-local first-year population in the last academic year.
Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu announced in his policy address last month that the government would further increase the enrolment ceiling for self-financing non-local students at public universities from 40 to 50 per cent of their local undergraduate places in 2026-27.
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The government first announced in 2023 that public universities would be allowed to double their quotas for non-local students from 2024-25 to 40 per cent.