Summary of FindingsBack

The aim of the first part of the survey was to study the general public’s perception of the higher institutions funded through UGC, namely, City University of Hong Kong (CityU), Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), Hong Kong Shue Yan University (HKSYU), Lingnan University (LU), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd), the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and The University of Hong Kong (HKU), plus Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) which was included for the fifth time since 2011. The order of these institutions was rotated randomly in different questionnaires in order to eliminate possible bias due to ordering. By means of a rating scale from 0-10, with 0 representing the worst, 10 representing the best and 5 being half-half, these institutions were assessed one by one with regard to their overall performance.

A. Overall Performance of Institutions

To begin with, all respondents were asked to evaluate each of these institutions based on their perception of its overall performance using a scale of 0-10, with 0 representing the worst, 10 representing the best and 5 being half-half. Respondents were suggested to take into account the institution’s local and international reputation, facilities, campus environment, qualification of its teaching staff, academic research performance, conduct and quality of its students, its learning atmosphere, as well as the diversification and degree of recognition for its courses. Survey results of this year indicated that, in terms of public perception, HKU received the highest mean score of 7.58 as rated by 1,110 respondents, CUHK came second with an average score of 7.35 as rated by 1,099 respondents, whereas HKUST ranked third with a mean score of 7.24 as rated by 1,049 respondents. When compared to the findings obtained from last year’s survey, the order of rankings among eight institutions remained exactly the same while CityU and HKBU were swapped. Yet, all the university ratings dropped and except for CityU, their respective drops were tested to be statistically significant at p=0.01 level (Table 3).

Table 3 - Overall Performance of Institutions

Same as last year, our cross-tabulation analyses showed that, within each sub-group of the sample, the order of rankings of the universities were basically the same regardless of respondents’ education attainment and occupation. Only some insignificant differences were observed which are enclosed in squares below. For the actual ratings obtained by each institution as rated by each sub-group, please refer to the tables below (Tables 4-5).

Table 4 – Cross-tabulation Analyses: Institution Performance by Education Attainment of Respondents

B. Overall Performance of Vice-Chancellors/Presidents/Principals

With respect to the perceived overall performance of the Vice-Chancellor/President/Principal of each institution, taking into consideration one’s local and international reputation, approachability, leadership, vision, social credibility and public relations, Professor Joseph J.Y. Sung of CUHK again topped the list this year with an average score of 7.74 as rated by 1,015 respondents. Professor Peter MATHIESON of HKU, Professor Tony F. Chan of HKUST and Professor Timothy W. Tong of PolyU came second to fourth, with mean scores of 6.95, 6.79 and 6.45 as rated by 803, 656 and 637 respondents respectively. The next tier included Professor Stephen Y.L. CHEUNG of HKIEd, Professor Way KUO of CityU and Professor Albert Chan of HKBU who ranked fifth to seventh attaining a mean score of 6.13, 6.12 and 6.10 respectively. The eighth and ninth ranks fell to the Presidents/Principals of OUHK and LU correspondingly, with respective average scores of 5.88 and 5.55. Seven out of nine Vice-Chancellors / Presidents / Principals had obtained recognition rates of 50% or above. Of which, Professor Joseph S.Y. Sung of CUHK received the highest recognition rate of 85% (Table 6).

Table 6 - Overall Performance of Vice-Chancellors / Presidents / Principals

When cross-tabulated by respondents’ education attainment and occupation, slight variations were obtained in terms of the respective rankings of the Vice-Chancellors / Presidents / Principals as rated by different sub-groups. They were enclosed in squares for easy reference. Actual ratings obtained by each Vice-Chancellors / Presidents / Principals are shown in the following tables (Tables 7-8).

Table 7 – Cross-tabulation Analyses: Vice-Chancellors / Presidents / Principals Performance by Education Attainment of Respondents

Table 8a – Cross-tabulation Analyses: Vice-Chancellors / Presidents / Principals Performance by Occupation of Respondents (I)

Table 8b – Cross-tabulation Analyses: Vice-Chancellors / Presidents / Principals Performance by Occupation of Respondents (II)

C. Perceived Deficiencies among the University Students in Hong Kong

The next question was to gauge respondents’ opinion on the qualities which most Hong Kong university students lack of. This year’s results have consistently showed that “social / interpersonal skills” topped the list with 14% of respondents citing it. “Work attitude”, “critical thinking and problem-solving ability” and “conduct, honesty” obtained the second to forth ranks and were mentioned by 11% each of the total sample. Other commonly-cited qualities included “global prospect / foresight”, “independence”, “social / work experience”, “academic and professional knowledge”, “proficiency in Chinese, English & Putonghua” and “commitment to society”, accounting for 5% to 9% of the total sample. Meanwhile, 17% of the respondents could not give a definite answer (Table 9).

D. Preference for University Graduates

The survey went on to study employers’ preference when selecting university graduates. To identify the prospective employers from the sample, all respondents were asked if they were involved in any recruitment process of new staff in performing their office duties. Results showed that 16% of the total sample, i.e. 196 respondents had such authority in one way or another. This percentage is nearly the same as last year (Table 10).

Table 10 - Involvement in Recruitment of New Staff (Teachers included)

These respondents were further asked which institution’s graduates would be preferred when they looked for a new employee. In this year, graduates of CUHK ranked first, as chosen by 18% of these employers whereas HKUST and HKU came second and third with 17% and 14% respectively. Meanwhile, graduates from PolyU were preferred by 7% of this sub-sample. Another 23% of these prospective employers said they had no particular preference and 3% could not give a definite answer. It has to be noted that because of the small sub-sample, the maximum sampling error has increased to plus/minus 7.2 percentage points at 95% confidence level (Table 11).

Table 11 - Most Preferred University Graduates

Table 12 - Reasons for Preferring Graduates of a Particular Institution

Chart 1 - Overall Performance Ratings of Institutions, 2001-2015