Students take the Chinese-language examination at a school in Tai Po. Photo: HandoutGovernment statistics show that the success rate of eligible candidates who sat for Hong Kong’s university entrance exam has fallen from 70 per cent in 2023 to 61 per cent.
This number is despite changing the liberal studies core subject, which allowed more students to meet the minimum entrance requirements for the city’s publicly funded universities.
According to figures recently submitted by the Education Bureau to the Legislative Council, 19,262 candidates who took the Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) last year met the minimum requirement to get into the eight local universities.
But only 61 per cent – or 11,837 candidates – received offers from varsities via the Joint University Programmes Admissions System (Jupas), a centralised system for those hoping to pursue full-time undergraduate programmes.
The success rate for those eligible students dropped by 9 percentage points compared with 2023 – when 70 per cent of DSE candidates were offered places in the city’s government-funded universities.
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About 50,000 candidates sat the DSE in both 2023 and 2024.
Last year, 1,356 more students met the minimum entrance requirement than during the previous year. There was a drop in the number of places available at the eight universities through Jupas, from 12,592 in 2023 to 11,837 last year.
Liberal studies became one of four core subjects of the senior secondary school curriculum in 2009. It was replaced by citizenship and social development in 2021 – two years after the 2019 anti-government protests – following accusations that the curriculum was radicalising youngsters.
Last year’s DSE exams saw the first batch of students taking the new core subject, which only has two classifications in terms of grades – either “attained” or “unattained”. The new syllabus focuses on national security, identity, lawfulness and patriotism.
Under the revamp, schools allocated more lessons for other core subjects, and students chose an additional elective.
Last year, the new core subject had a high attainment rate of 93.7 per cent among all candidates, a requirement by all public universities. In contrast, only 89.6 per cent achieved level 2 in the previous liberal studies subject, a minimum requirement to get into universities under the exam’s seven-level grading scale.
Ng Po-shing, a student guidance consultant of Hok Yau Club, said the new subject was generally considered easier than liberal studies.
He said the lower success rate for eligible students to enter universities was mainly due to the scrapping of liberal studies, which freed up time for students to study other core subjects such as Chinese, English and mathematics.
Ng said statistics from authorities showed more students achieved level 3 or above in Chinese and English, and level 2 or above in mathematics, which are requirements by the eight universities, resulting in more students becoming eligible to compete for places.
“It means students have to get better grades than before to secure places in the universities that they wanted, as more students now attained the benchmark,” he said.
“Only getting the minimum requirement did not help students to enter university [amid greater competition].”
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Ng added that universities would be “definitely happier” as the academic performance of those seeking admission was better than before.
Meanwhile, 146 non-Chinese students were admitted to the eight publicly funded universities via Jupas in the 2023-24 school year, a slight decrease from 149 the previous year.
Starting from the 2024-25 academic year, the enrolment ceiling of non-local students at the eight universities for undergraduate programmes doubles, equivalent to 40 per cent of the number of places for local students.
Under the new policy, the universities received roughly 82,000 applications for the current school year, a 15 per cent jump from the last one. Only 7 per cent of applicants were admitted.
Of all applicants, 85 per cent were from mainland China, 12 per cent were from other parts of Asia, and 3 per cent were from other regions – figures similar to previous years.