Analysis | Higher education: University business model should not apply to local undergraduates

The proposal of the Macau government to turn higher education into a new industry that can be more self-sufficient and less dependent on government funding seems to have been well-received by some within the university sector. Nevertheless, scholars and social affairs specialists are warning that such an idea should not apply to local undergraduates, but instead to students from abroad and students of graduate school programs.
That is precisely the opinion of social affairs commentator Larry So, who told the Times that he agrees in general terms with the idea that universities should depend less on public funding and establish a separation between local and non-local students.
“A lot of universities are already going into a self-sufficient or self-financed kind of approach,” So said, adding, “but then, of course, this is not the same as [transforming the universities into] commercial enterprises that have to make money.”
In the commentator’s opinion, the government still has to subsidize the institutions to a certain extent, but not students who are non-local residents.
So noted that the idea expressed by Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng earlier this week in the presentation of the Policy Address is not new, but instead represents the adoption of a worldwide practice.
“This is a global practice right now. We can [divide] students into two categories: residents and non-residents. For those non-residents, they should be charged a higher school fee, two or three-fold higher,” the commentator suggested. “We can also divide the university into two parts. At the undergraduate level, the government should continue to subsidize students in the same way [we are doing now], but only for undergraduates.”
For the Master and Doctorate programs, the government can direct universities to use the so-called “enterprise approach.”
Using this dual approach, So believes that the government can achieve both the commercial goal of running higher education as a business, but also continue to guarantee that local students have access to affordable undergraduate education.
“If the government decides to charge locals in the same way, they will be discouraging the local students from staying,” concluded So.
For education scholar Teresa Vong, the idea of self-sustainability in local universities can be understood in a broader sense. For the associate professor of the University of Macau’s Faculty of Education, besides requiring “less dependency on public money,” increased self-sufficiency might also include increasing enrolments to provide a wider range of courses and to allow a sufficient number of enrolments to keep costs reasonable.
For the scholar, the decision to “industrialize” higher education or, as she prefers to call it, “the commodification” of higher education, is a response to the current demographic situation.
As she told the Times, studies have shown that the number of secondary school graduates is declining in Macau, and elsewhere in the world.
“Only in 2030 will the number of [secondary school] graduates will return to a normal standard in Macau, around 7,000. The small number of the student population is translated into a high cost per capita,” she explained.
Vong agrees that the introduction of market-driven forces (including competition and managerialism) in higher education will change the landscape, which depends on demand and supply, not just locally, but around the globe.
The scholar also added that, for the time being, it is difficult to have a clear idea of what will be done, as “the government is going to create a committee to investigate this issue, so it is still too early to make substantial comments.”
On the same topic, and in an interview with the Macao Daily News newspaper, the vice-rector of the Macau University of Science and Technology Lin Zhijun suggested that the government introduce a performance efficiency indicator for universities, so as to monitor and even drive their competitiveness.
For Lin, competition between universities should lead these institutions to increase the quality of their offerings for students and, as a consequence, raise the standard of Macau’s higher education.
The vice-rector also expressed the feeling that local higher education has, over the last few years, accumulated several competitive advantages that should allow them to meet the commercialization goals outlined this week by the Chief Executive. Renato Marques & Lynzy Valles