The Education Bureau announced today that the Ministry of Education's (MoE) agreement has been obtained to progressively relax the quota for admission of Mainland students by the six self-financing institutions to join their degree programmes.

They are also allowed to admit students from all provinces of the country, with a view to supporting the development of the self-financing post-secondary education sector, making contributions to Hong Kong's development into an international education hub.

The six institutions are Metropolitan University, Shue Yan University, the Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Chu Hai College, Tung Wah College, and the Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong under the Vocational Training Council.

Secretary for Education Choi Yuk-lin said she is grateful for the support of the MoE towards the capacity expansion and quality enhancement of self-financing post-secondary institutions, noting that the relaxation arrangement can harness the advantages of Hong Kong's self-financing sector to nurture talent for the country and the city.

“The bureau will keep in view institutions' track record of operating self-financing programmes, performance in student admissions and utilisation of the prevailing quota, and liaise with the MoE to explore feasible further enhancements as and when appropriate.”

From the 2025-26 academic year, the quota for Mainland, Macau and Taiwan (MMT) students of full-time locally-accredited self-financing local sub-degree and undergraduate programmes of these institutions will be increased in phases to 40%, in an orderly and progressive manner with regard to their utilisation of the prevailing quota.

Concurrently, the bureau will rationalise the calculation methodology of the relevant quota to provide self-financing institutions with greater certainty in admission planning and more effectively utilising the educational resources of institutions.

Under the prevailing policy, save for MMT students, there is no quota restriction on the admission of non-local students to full-time locally-accredited self-financing local sub-degree, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

The quota for MMT students enrolling in full-time locally-accredited self-financing local sub-degree and undergraduate programmes is 10% to 20% at the present, and there is no quota restriction for postgraduate programmes.