The recognised great success of Hong Kong (HK)’s higher education across the world has won acclaims across the world. The inclusion of five of the eight local public universities in the list of the top one hundred universities worldwide testifies to the city’s huge efforts and investments in the publicly-funded higher education institutions, along with the hard and innovative work of their academic and administrative staff groups. This is also one of the major reasons why the city’s talent admissions schemes have been faring with flying colours.

Last year, 55,000 dependent children under the age of 18 came to the SAR with their parents relocating to HK with the status of non-local talents.  And up to May this year, about 142,000 children under the age of 18 have been approved for entry as dependents under various talent admissions schemes. Currently, students who have secured dependent visas for the first time or received entry permits when they were under 18 years in age are eligible to apply as local students for the 15,000 first-year-first-degree places funded by the government through the University Grants Committee (UGC). Sources from the Education Bureau (EDB) have indicated that since the implementation of various talent programmes, the visa applications for relevant dependents have gone up “significantly”. The number of dependent visa applications has quadrupled from about 200 in 2020/21 to 1,048 in 2024/25.

The story, however, does not end at this point. The EDB pointed out last week that it has been alerted to recent concerns over the obvious growing number of dependent children of non-local talents applying for subsidised university places but some of these students and their parents did not actually come to reside in HK. This group of non-local talents does not have a genuine interest and plan to settle and develop their careers and businesses in HK. In doing so, they would not actually contribute to the city’s economy, and potentially impact higher education opportunities for local students and the fair and efficient use of taxpayers’ money.

In the light of such emerging circumstances, authorities have introduced tightened eligibility rules for the SAR’s publicly-financed university education, specifically for dependent children of non-local talents. Taking effect from the 2028/29 academic year, the changes involve a two-year residency in HK before these students are qualified to apply for public university seats. This applies to students who initially came to HK on dependent visas or entry permits before they turn 18 in age. In terms of the timeframe for the tightened eligibility criteria, a one-year transitional period is set for the 2027/28 academic year to allow time for families in question to adjust to the new rules and plan for their relocation to the city. Meanwhile, students attempting to gain entry for local universities’ subsidised programmes can prove residency through full-time attendance at a registered local school offering a formal curriculum or by submitting immigration records. The new eligibility policy introduces two categories of tuition fees for study in the metropolis’s public-sector universities: subsidised and non-subsidised. The latter category is applicable to candidates from the group of dependent children of non-local talents who are not able to satisfy the residency requirement and thus are to pay tuition fees three times higher than the amount paid by their local counterparts.

Some press media have conveyed comments that the new revised eligibility criteria for the city’s higher education opportunities may discourage some non-local talents from choosing HK to settle in; however, many others believe that the tightened policy may help bring in those who are committed to the city to consider staying in the longer term. Undeniably, dissatisfaction has been mounting in the local community, particularly among the senior school students and their parents over attempts by some mainland families to exploit loopholes in the city’s Top Talent Pass Scheme to transfer their children into the territory’s subsidised tertiary education institutions. But Chief Secretary Eric Chan warned last week that anyone coming to HK without intending to work and live here could be in violation of the law. In an effort to make up for the outflow of educated and professional people, the HK government kicked off the Top Talent Pass Scheme in 2022. Since then, the city’s various talent admissions programmes have received about 500,000 applications, of which 330,000 have been approved and 220,000 people have arrived.

There is nothing wrong for the government to stem the rising tide of these presumably immigration-oriented families from taking advantage of the gaps in the prevailing talent admission schemes by arranging their eligible dependent children to reap the attractive educational benefits provided in the local public universities. A few recent posts on the popular Chinese social media platform RedNote have claimed that mainlanders in hopes of securing the city’s identity cards for their dependent children could make use of its talent importation plans to move to the territory. The situation is particularly bad when some of these incoming talents have no intention to become part of the HK society in the long run, but only eye for their dependent children the prestigious and heavily subvented post-secondary education in the city. There is no room for argument that in the course of drawing non-local talents and their families to settle in HK, there is a crucial need to protect local students’ legitimate access to university education funded by the public coffers. This approach is also congruent with the vital goal of ensuring fair, efficient and accountable use of precious public resources.

Already the EDB has confirmed that there are sufficient available places in the school sector to accommodate immediately new school-age arrivals from the mainland. Over the ten academic years from 2015, there has been a continuing total of 10,000 vacant seats in the city’s Secondary Four classes, and indeed over this number of places not taken across the period in the local schools for Secondary Five and Six provisions. There is thus no justification for complaints over difficulty in finding school placements for children of talent immigrants. Equally, there are no convincing grounds for these incoming dependents to be specially considered for allocation to the territory’s elite and reputable schools. It should always be borne in mind that admissions to the much-desired Band One schools are determined largely by the academic and related performance of individual students.

If non-local talents really want their dependent sons or daughters to get landed in the student body of the SAR’s world-renowned universities, they should plan early for their family relocation to HK, have their children adapted to the learning environment and curriculum here and become well equipped for attending the Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) Exams — a globally recognised university entrance examination conducted each and every year in the city. For the educational and career benefit of the young immigrant generation, there is no short cut to this tested approach, taking duly into account the fruitful experiences of their counterparts who have steadily and successfully worked their way up in the always vibrant and thriving HK society.

Mervyn Cheung Man-ping

Chairman of Hong Kong Education Policy Concern Organisation

The views do not necessarily reflect those of Orange News.

Cover Photo: Information Services Department