The Reinvention of Undergraduate Education in Hong Kong

Abstract

except none of it will help anyone understand their own situation or where international comparisons truly matter. And for non-OECD countries where census methodologies and coverage have not fully matured, population ratio comparisons are even more problematic. And that is the more important point. The numbers do not help us do what we have to do. They steer us away from the task of refashioning the pieces of paper we award into meaningful documents, representing learning that helps our students compete in a world without borders. Instead of obsession with ratios, we should look instead to the action lines of the Bologna process: degree qualification frameworks, a “tuning” methodology that creates reference points for learning outcomes in the disciplines, the discipline-based benchmarking statements that tell students precisely what to expect of their educational journey and the public precisely what learning our institutions should be accountable for, Diplomas Supplements that warrantee student attainment, more flexible routes of access, and ways of identifying and targeting for participation underrepresented populations through geocoding. Slowly but surely, these features of Bologna are shaping a new global paradigm for higher education, and in that respect other countries are truly doing better. We should all be studying the substance, perhaps experiencing an epiphany or two about how to turn the big ship or the small skiffs on which we travel into the currents of global reform.