Hong Kong has the talent, but it needs to tackle challenges such as cutting red tape and expanding lab space to fully align with the education goals of the nation’s 15th Five-Year Plan, according to the president of the University of Hong Kong (HKU).

In an interview with RTHK's "Vision 15: Hong Kong's Chapter", Xiang Zhang laid out a clear roadmap for the city to become China's global education powerhouse — one that requires streamlining its administrative machinery and expanding university campuses.

"We have all the attributes that we can recruit the top people," Zhang said, pointing to HKU's ranking as the world's most internationalised university.

"Those top scholars, not only do you have to provide the excellent hardware, meaning equipment, laboratory conditions, but also the soft side, that means your administrative environment... your intellectual environment has to be very stimulating.

"To do business in terms of buying equipment, reimbursing your travels, and so on, has to be simple and streamlined. So for that, I do think Hong Kong needs to revamp ourselves and modernise."

Zhang also highlighted the need to find more space.

With HKU only one-sixth the size of Tsinghua University in Beijing, he welcomed the initiative to build a new Northern Metropolis campus as a long-term fix.

In the meantime, HKU is already in the midst of a massive expansion — constructing 20 new buildings, half of which will be dedicated to student housing, with completion targeted within three years.

Zhang believes that would help to attract more non-local students.

"I believe our student quota, both for non-local undergrad student and also PhD quota, can be further considered to expand a little bit. If you look at any top university, there are non-local students more than half," he said.

Ultimately, Zhang envisions HKU becoming "China’s world classroom" by recruiting top scholars and students from around the world.

On curriculum, he is steering HKU away from traditional professional silos towards interdisciplinary learning — launching degrees that merge science and the arts.

"I think with AI, that automation [will] almost penetrate every profession, so we have to educate our students into multi-facet disciplines.

"That is a huge contrast compared with our previous approach where we educate our students into a profession, whether you become a lawyer or become a medical doctor or engineer.

"In the future, students may change their jobs every five years or every few years, so that can be a norm. Our students have to be able to have the knowledge broad enough to deal with such a complex world."

But Zhang also diverged from the global rush towards pure tech education, arguing that the humanities are critical for students as well.

"Where does creativity come from? That's your immersion, you're influenced by the arts, by many other philosophies and so on," he said.

"We hope to champion for that, even though there may be a minority of universities in the world doing so, but we believe that's essential for our education."



Edited by Edmond Fong