Mainland schools attracting more HK applicants

Rizwan Ullah, the only non-Chinese member of the Youth Development Commission, led the tour. He was accompanied by about 60 non-Chinese Hong Kong students from three secondary schools.

Ullah, a Hong Kong-born Pakistani, works as an English teacher at Delia Memorial School (Hip Wo) in Kowloon. He said he hoped the trip would broaden the horizons of participants and allow them to view fresh opportunities at first hand. The students learn about different universities' admission policies, environments, curricula and scholarship programs.

"We hope the tour will allow them to realize that they have more options after graduation," Ullah said.

The exchanges have earned positive responses from mainland universities, a number of which have begun to put more effort into promotional activities and are becoming more active in connecting with Hong Kong secondary schools.

Chen Jun, dean of the School of International Education at SMU, said the university's closer cooperation with Hong Kong secondary schools has achieved "a win-win result".

Students who face intense competition to enter Hong Kong universities are able to look at more options for higher education programs, she said.

"Every time I went to Hong Kong to promote our university, I saw many teenagers who were highly interested in studying medicine and surgery," Chen said, "We want to help them to realize their dreams."

Universities can embrace more diverse cultures and gain international insights by having more students from different backgrounds, she added.

Hu Guiping, deputy dean of the School of International Education at South China University of Technology, said the school has begun attaching greater importance to admissions from Hong Kong.

Since 2017, it has appointed several people to work on this, and Hu has led the team to seven Hong Kong secondary schools to promote the university.