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HK students get mainland-fee parity
By Zhu Zhe and Teddy Ng (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-02-28 05:44
Students from Hong Kong and Macao studying at mainland Chinese universities
will pay the same tuition fees as their mainland peers, starting this September.
They will also become the beneficiaries of a newly launched scholarship fund,
the Ministry of Education announced yesterday at a Beijing press conference.
Students from these two special admnistrative regions will be charged the
same tuition and boarding fees as their mainland classmates, and will live in
the same dorms, said ministry spokesman Wang Xuming.
Colleges that enrol Hong Kong and Macao students will get special subsidies
of about 8,000 yuan (US$918) per student per year from the central government to
cover extra educational costs.
The average annual tuition for Hong Kong and Macao undergraduates studying on
the mainland are about US$1,000 to 1,500 currently, while their mainland
classmates pay the equivalent of US$367.
Lo Kin-chung, a student who was unable to enter a Hong Kong university
because of his poor marks in the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination
in 2003, warmly supports the policy.
He said he wanted to study economics or journalism at Guangzhou's Jinan
University, and "the reduction of tuition is an attractive factor."
Kwok Ming-wa, vice-president of the Beijing-Hong Kong Academic Exchange
Centre, predicts that more students will opt to study on the mainland.
The centre, which helps students apply for Peking and Tsinghua universities,
expects more than 300 to do so this year.
Taiwan students were offered the same favourable policies last September, and
they have benefited from a scholarship fund that distributes 7 million yuan
(US$864,000) each year.
The ministry did not disclose the specific amount of the new scholarship for
Hong Kong and Macao students.
The ministry also announced yesterday that students at rural primary and
junior middle schools in 16 provinces and autonomous regions in western China
would be exempt from paying tuition about 200 yuan (US$25) a year beginning this
spring semester.
Wang Xuming said the policy will be permanent and will extend to all of
China's rural areas next year.
(China Daily 02/28/2006 page2)
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