The Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK), celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, boasts a unique history and amazing transformation course. Its modest beginnings have been vast: it became based on authorities’ statute to be the primary nearby issuer for distance learning education for working adults in 1989. It shifted to a self-financing version in 1993. Over the years, it has developed along a trajectory fashioned via social change, always maintaining the undertaking of serving society at heart. At 30, it is now a full-fledged university with a wide variety of programs — complete-time and component-time, undergraduate and postgraduate — to nurture our leaders of the day after today.
The first decade: pioneering open and distance schooling
OUHK’s fulfillment story is rooted in a pioneering spirit blended with a keen eye for society’s needs. It was first named the Open Learning Institute (OLI), its establishment supplying a modern technique to most Hong Kong adults who had left school to head to work. The Institute won self-accrediting and university status through 1997, and already via the give up of the first decade, it had set itself up as a clan chief in the discipline, identified by way of prestigious awards from the Commonwealth of Learning and the International Council for Open and Distance Education (1999). It had greater than measured up to its venture of providing “education for all.”
OUHK’s second decade became marked via a key step forward: the release of its first five full-time, face-to-face programs at the Associate Degree level in 2001, observed by Bachelor’s ranges in 2003 in reaction to the Government’s call to further increase better education. A fresh call for secondary college leavers made the new full-time offerings an instantaneous fulfillment. By 2007, OUHK changed, giving the green light to participate in the Government’s Joint University Programmes Admissions System (JUPAS), staking its region inside the area of full-time undergraduate schooling alongside the UGC-funded institutions.
The 1/3 decade: complete status quo
Now full-fledged, OUHK offers 220 programs from 800 full-time and element-time publications. Educating more than 1/2 of its students on campus has climbed to sixth place among nearby universities in full-time scholar numbers. In 2018/19, OUHK’s full-time pupil population has grown to 10,392, ninety% of which can be undergraduates.
Behind those figures is an ongoing attempt to gauge marketplace trends, pick out monetary adjustments and examine government policy. OUHK’s current awareness of education and new skills for industries in demand has given rise to realistic, expert signature programs in Creative Arts, Testing and Certification, Nursing, Energy and Environmental Studies, Early Childhood Education, Psychology, Corporate Governance, and Hospitality Management. The Government has approved granting the University a 3rd of the sponsored quota under its Study Subsidy Scheme for Designated Professions/Sectors (SDP) for two years in a row.
