Hong Kong is daring to do what the United States is afraid to do--completely overhaul their educational system, from kindergarten through higher education, in the name of a more holistic, competitive, and globally aligned approach. Over 8 years in the planning, the foresee-ability factor on this one is amazing. Under the old model, students were on a 3-4-3 model, where they attended just 3 years of higher education for an undergraduate degree. The new model is being referred to as a 3-3-4, where four years of higher education will be needed to complete an undergraduate degree. As aforementioned, part of this change is to align Hong Kong with mainland China, and the United States, but also to allow graduates to compete in a global environment. Students are generally thrilled about the change (or at least this particular sample of students).
While this change is likely to benefit students in Hong Kong for generations to come, institutions like City University are preparing for an incredible influx of students. This is an implementation challenge at its finest. The entering class of 2012 is suddenly the entering class of 2012 AND 2013, the original class of 2014 is now 2013, etc. The entering class of 2011 is still on the old curriculum, as is the cohort of students comprising the two classes above them which means that graduation will essentially skip a year. What does this mean? INSANE enrollment boom. Not making sense? Here's a handy dandy chart I made to help myself figure this out (let's pretend that every class has a 10% growth, starting with 10,000 students and another 10,000 students graduating each year just to make this simpler):
Now, I know the math isn't perfect, but I hope you get the point. What institution of higher education is prepared for a 65% percent enrollment boom all in one year only to have it jump again 4 years beyond that and suddenly drop off a ledge the next year? At least they know it is coming their way. I have a colleague who directs the residential housing program at City University. She and I have had a few conversations about how the Special Administrative Region is attempting to handle the beast (and the burst) that is this education overall. The numbers are staggering and somewhat intimidating for the staff, but they are diligently preparing for their own version of the end of the world (2012). Mostly, this means building new construction, scrambling for new instructors, and hiring staff at an exponential pace. The higher education folks seem to be handling this with grace and premeditated calm (at least anecdotally), but it makes me wonder if here in the United States if we would do the same. Would we whine? Would our government even dare to go here? Financially, might the government support such a massive transition via staffing and capital improvements (not to mention the FF&E)?
And we thought U.S. Community Colleges were growing rapidly...
No, our government would never go there. Or perhaps, I should say the voting public would never ALLOW the government to be so bold as to overhaul any system in the United States, not just education. Look at the health care controversy! We certainly are in need of an overhaul! From early childhood education through post secondary education, the system could benefit from a number of changes.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the conversations revolving around the higher education turmoil would be less so if we did a better job to prepare students in high school. Perhaps students in high school would be more prepared if we did a better job in helping students focus and find a goal in middle school. Perhaps it would be easier to determine a goal in middle school if we standardized our elementary schools to even the playing field. Perhaps it would be easier to standardize education if all kids received some type of formal early childhood education.
I do not necessarily believe in each of these, but it demonstrates how our country would need an "overhaul" to make a difference. I think it will be interesting to see what happens in Hong Kong over the dent decade to see if they are successful in being more international and competitive.
A few of you know that I traveled to Kenya two summers ago to examine their public higher education system. Kenyan college students (and society in general) have many similarities to western countries but also some differences. For example, they will go on strike when they disagree with university policies or when national leaders do bad things. To be frank, when they go on strike there is also a fair amount of violence and vandalism that occurs. To address this, the administration closes school and sends everyone home. After the strike (which can last many months and sometimes close to a year), things return to normal but...those students who should have started during the strike or left because they should have graduated are all welcomed back. The result is that with some frequency the school welcomes the class of 20xx and 20xx+1. It makes for a great deal of stress and policies that lead to student dissatisfaction...which often leads to strikes! Hong Kong is vastly different, but I do not envy what they are about to go through.
ReplyDeleteMatt, that is insane. I'm not at all familiar with Kenyan higher education (though I did have the privilege of travelling there in the early 1990's). The cycle of striking due to dissatisfaction leads to striking is, well, striking. Do the strikes actually change policies? Or do they compound the issues to the point where enrollment is unbearable?
ReplyDeleteJill, I like this post. I admire how much innovation is taking place in China and to be truthful, I don't think I have any sense of the scope of how things are changing over there. I like the fact that your post puts their exponential growth into language that resonates with what I know...higher education.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Michele that our country would never let that happen. I think we all agree that our k-12 system needs an overhaul, which would affect higher education, but we are too bogged down in politics that are polarizing and paralyzing.
It is fun to think about what that could look like though...