After the handover of Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997 the new local administration embarked on a series of reforms throughout the education sector. At the turn of the new millennium, it introduced policies that would hugely expand higher education, through associate degrees and the establishment of community colleges. The ambitious plan was to expand post-secondary education for secondary school graduates from 34% to 60% within a decade. This was carried out through the massive expansion of the private sector through self-financing programmes and private colleges, resulting in a system containing both a public and private sector. To encourage students to study in the selffinancing four-year degree programmes at such newly established higher education institutions the government introduced a generous subsidy called the Study Subsidy Scheme for Designated Professions/Sectors (SSSDP). This thesis examines the student motivations and experience of studying in such an SSSDP-subsidised 4-year degree programme at one of the newly established self-financing establishments. Current research has mostly focused on sub-degree programmes and community colleges. Initial conceptualisation assumed that most students would be from lower banding schools, grateful for the chance to study at an affordable local institution in a subject they were keenly interested in at degree level. The investigation happened at a newly established self-financing higher education institution providing vocationally and professionally oriented programmes. A broadly phenomenological approach was employed using mainly qualitative methods for data collection. The investigation took place during the Covid-19 pandemic over four months. The overarching theme to emerge concerns the effects of the neo-liberal agenda and Confucian beliefs which helped to mask the unfairness of the way the massification of higher education has been enacted locally, that the student experience reveals a complicated emotional journey through what is now considered as a rite of passage for many youths in the developed world.
The learning experience and self-identity of SSSDP subsidised students in a Hong Kong self-financing higher education institute
Lee, K. L. (Author). 10 Dec 2024
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Education (EdD)