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 February 28, 2006)