Education Secretary Christine Choi said on Saturday that a rise in school fees will not hurt the competitiveness of the SAR’s universities.

Starting the next academic year, the government will hike the current tuition fees of HK$42,100 for eight public universities by just under 18 percent in phased increases over three years.

The fees have been frozen for almost three decades.

Choi told an RTHK radio programme that she believes the move will not affect the universities’ teaching, research and attractiveness.

“For most of the time, apart from relying on government funding as their source of income, the institutions have also had donations. And besides undergraduate programmes, they've taught postgraduate programmes which consist of more self-financing students,” she said.

“Universities have different sources of income. Of course, funding will have some impact on them. But we note that they also have relatively sound reserves or financial management.”

She said the institutions will have sufficient time to make arrangements.

Choi also revealed that the government has no plan to gradually increase the tuition fees of non-local students until it's recovered all costs.

She noted that Singapore is charging non-local students between HK$100,000 and HK$200,000.

Choi said that if the SAR hiked fees to more than HK$300,000, local universities will not be able to attract top talent.