Deputy President, today’s motion for debate is about urging the SAR Government to adopt more proactive measures to formulate a comprehensive strategic development blueprint for Hong Kong’s education and provide more diversified education services and support measures, thereby playing the role of leveraging the SAR’s advantages for meeting the country’s needs in the field of education, maintaining and strengthening Hong Kong’s edge as an international city, and enabling the country’s and the SAR’s education to be more influential and have a greater say in the world.

The Chief Executive advocated in last year’s Policy Address the building of an international hub for post-secondary education and the promotion of diversified youth development, mentioning eight proposed initiatives under this section. The first three of which are the most crucial and closely connected with one other. Here are the key points: first, doubling the admission quota of non-local students by government-funded post-secondary institutions to 40%, and strengthening scholarship and related support to attract more overseas and Mainland students to further studies in Hong Kong; second, developing the Northern Metropolis University Town; and third, facilitating establishment of universities of applied sciences to upgrade vocational and professional education and training to university level.

In my opinion, we will be on the road to success in building an international hub for post-secondary education should the aforesaid three initiatives be effectively implemented in an expeditious manner. Here, I would suggest that the Government should take a more aggressive approach in attracting students both from abroad and the Mainland to pursue post-secondary education in Hong Kong, with a further move of offering subsidies to attract more Mainland students to study in Hong Kong’s secondary schools. I think this approach has three advantages: first, this will allow such Mainland students to adapt to Hong Kong’s academic structure at an earlier stage, which will be of great help to them in securing a path for further studies in the future; second, this serves as the basis for further development of Hong Kong’s education services; and third, this helps Hong Kong build up its talent pool.

I think Hong Kong is now in a position to embark on this proposal of mine. According to the Education Bureau’s latest Report on Student Enrolment Statistics, the total number of students who dropped out from primary and secondary schools exceeded 27 000 in the current academic year, representing an overall wastage rate of about 4% (with 4.56% in secondary schools and 3.43% in primary schools). While society at large is worrying about whether the student wastage rate will remain high or is on the rise, I consider this an opportunity to expand the scope of government subsidy for Mainland students to include those pursuing studies in Hong Kong’s secondary schools with boarding placement.

Regrettably, the student wastage in Hong Kong has forced the closure of a number of local primary and secondary schools and even kindergartens one after another, among which are long-established schools known for their excellence in education. These high-quality schools can, nevertheless, carry on educating and nurturing elites if more Mainland students further their studies in Hong Kong. The Liberal Party has been proposing over the years the adding of a brand new “education voucher scheme” for permanent residents of Hong Kong under the existing 15-year free education system. Such a proposed scheme may help encourage childbearing among middle-class families, and we hope its scope of application will include all those private independent nurseries and kindergartens currently not receiving government subsidies (excluding subsidized or DSS (Direct Subsidy Scheme) primary schools and secondary schools as they are all receiving government subsidies), covering international schools and private primary and secondary schools as well. In this case, the parents can have genuine freedom of choice in making decisions on resource allocation, thereby enhancing the incentive for middle-class families to give birth. Under the proposed education voucher scheme, subsidies equivalent to the current average amount of per student funding will be offered in the form of education vouchers instead of additional subsidies to middle-class families.  In my opinion, the Government may explore the possibility of expanding the target beneficiaries of the proposed scheme to those Mainland students choosing to further their studies in Hong Kong, so that we should be able to, at least in the initial stage, attract Mainland students to come to Hong Kong for furthering their studies in secondary schools. Schools with boarding placement should be selected for the scheme to save students from cross-boundary commuting in the future.

Lastly, as mentioned in the first paragraph of the motion for today’s debate, President XI Jinping stated in May 2023 “the need to improve the strategy of educational opening up, put equal emphasis on introducing overseas educational resources and going global, and put to good use world-class educational resources and innovative factors, so as to make China an influential and important education hub in the world. It is important to participate in global education governance and vigorously promote the brand of ‘Study in China’”.

With these remarks, Deputy President, I support the motion.