In the era of globalisation, competition has also become global. In higher education, countries worldwide are attaching increasing importance to international ranking exercises and subscribing to the 'world-class universities' paradigm, complemented by various strategies to benchmark with leading universities in order to enhance the global competitiveness of their universities. This is particularly so in Asia as it emerges as the centre of fast-growing economies of the world. Against this wider global policy backdrop, this article reviews major policies introduced and strategies employed by the government and universities/higher education institutions of Hong Kong in the quest for world-class status. It critically examines the 'politics of competition' among institutions for both state and non-state resources, in recruiting and retaining global talent, and in internationalising their curricula in order to achieve their global aspirations. It also explores the intra-institutional 'politics' within institutions involving tensions between teaching and research, and among different discipline areas.
[Copyright of Roeper Review is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2011.564998]

Policy borrowing' continues to be an important factor in the construction of higher education policy in East Asia. Many post-colonial societies have continued to look to the West for models that will assist them to reengineer their universities in the quest for creating world class institutions. Against this background, Hong Kong's University Grants Committee adopted an outcomes based approach to teaching and learning in 2005 and gained support from institutions under its responsibility for doing so. Supported with ample resources, the subject of numerous public symposia and incorporated into regular quality audit assessments, outcomes based approaches to teaching and learning are in the process of becoming part of Hong Kong's distinctive approach to quality reform in higher education. This paper reviews the policy context in which this initiative emerged, analyses the policy meaning in terms of its underlying theories and derives a set of principles that could guide the implementation of outcomes based approaches. The multiple possibilities associated with outcomes based teaching and learning demonstrate how systemic reform agendas are subject to interpretation and local adaptation.
[Copyright of Roeper Review is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2011.564995]

The process of reforming Hong Kong's higher education sector commenced in 2001, and the system moved into the post-massification era. Within five years, the post-secondary participation rate for the 17-20 age cohort had increased to 66 per cent. This target was achieved much earlier than the Government had planned. More educational opportunities have been made available in order to help society cope with the challenges of the knowledge-based economy. This policy has drawn repeated criticism from the media, students, and pressure groups concerned about the quality of the self-financed sub-degree programmes. Drawing upon the literature and published data, this paper examines the development of the higher education sector in the past decade. The key motives for the Government to expand the mass higher education sector include a globalised economy, unemployment, ideological changes in political leadership, and weaknesses inherent in the elitist approach. Self-financed programmes are offered in the sectors where the Government has not faced problems of financial stringency. However, articulation opportunities, quality of education and educated unemployment are the key challenges ahead.
[Copyright of Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2011.550034]

This paper investigates the determinants of student attendance of economics classes. Course-specific and individual-specific factors are shown to have significant impacts on class attendance. It was found that female students and overseas students skip classes less often. Surprisingly, students involved in extracurricular activities attend classes more often than students who are not involved in these activities.
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Universities and other institutions of higher learning now encounter far more challenge, and are subjected to an unprecedented level of external scrutiny. All providers of higher education today inhabit a more competitive world where resources are becoming scarcer, but at the same time they have to accommodate increasing demands from the local community as well as changing expectations from parents and employers. In order to be responsive to all those competing needs an emphasis on 'strong management' is introduced in the educational realm, with a fundamental paradigm shift to the notion of economic rationalism in running educational services. In such a policy context this paper sets out to examine how higher education in Hong Kong has gone through a similar process of marketisation with particular reference to the strategies and approaches adopted by the University Grants Committee, the central funding body of higher educational institutions in Hong Kong, to assure a quality and ' value for money' higher education in the territory. This paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the adoption of a 'management- oriented' approach in delivering educational services.
[Copyright of Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1360080990210109]