There is a long history of higher education in Hong Kong with the founding of its first university, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), in 1911. Students enrolling in higher education courses in Hong Kong post Second World War were considered elite-type. Since the early 1990s, the age participation rate has increased to 18% for first degree courses, equalling to the expansion of approximately 50% in undergraduates. Changes have been apparent from elitist higher education to mass-type higher education. Another essential development in Hong Kong's higher education sector was the Chief Executive announcing in 2000 that age participation would be doubled to 60% within ten years. This paper aims to historically review the development of the higher education sector in Hong Kong. The problems associated with the processes involved and discussion related to the future development of this sector during this century will also be analysed.

Interpreting modernisation and globalisation in East Asia as processes of Westernisation creates confusion and discomfort among some academics from the region. To illustrate why such discomfort occurs, this article explores the changes in the higher education systems of Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China in terms of their ‘Chineseness’ as a potentially unifying regional identity that can be counterposed to Westernisation. The recent and polyvalent theme of ‘Greater China’ is invoked in this article to describe and interpret the institutional frameworks, within which higher education is developing in this imaginary region, as well as to establish possible discursive linkages in the continuing transformation and strategic reorientation of higher education and its role in the recent economic, political and socio-cultural developments. In this regard, the interrelated discourses of Chineseness and Greater China have the following functions: they imply regionalism; they enable a break with their imperial and colonial past; and they provide the basis for different kinds of hybridisation between Chinese and Western intellectual, educational and cultural traditions and values.
[Copyright © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis.]

This article analyses a recent policy change in higher education in Hong Kong to determine the significance of politics in the conceptual understanding of higher education governance. To achieve this objective, the article examines the tension between the global agenda, which is characterised by neoliberal ideology and practices, and local needs, which explain the political interests of governments in higher education policy and justify government intervention in higher education. The article initially delineates neoliberal reforms in the 2000s and subsequently reviews the ideology of governance and the regulatory regime in the Hong Kong higher education system. Then, it analyses the recent policy change. Based on this analysis, the article argues that higher education governance in the city is undergoing a paradigm shift, with which the essence of governance has shifted from managing globalisation to managing the tension embedded in the global-local dynamics of agenda setting in higher education policy.
[Copyright © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.]

This chapter examines the development of private higher education in Hong Kong since the early 2000s with a focus on the trends of massification and internationalization. It consists of three sections. The first section examines the rationales for privatization of higher education in Hong Kong. The second section delineates the policy initiatives taken by the Hong Kong government to facilitate the development of private education. The third section illustrates the challenges of higher education development at the postmassification stage in the city.