The number of Form Six graduates in Hong Kong who are seeking further studies outside the city has decreased by 15 per cent compared to the previous year. This trend marks the second consecutive year of reaching record lows since the government began conducting an annual survey in 2012.
A student consultant and the owner of an agency connecting pupils with overseas universities both attributed the decline to an increase in available spots at local institutions and a number of students having already gone abroad to study.
Education trends in 2024
The figure came from the 2024 Secondary 6 Students’ Pathway Survey published by the Education Bureau on Wednesday. About 42,900 school graduates were contacted for the poll, with 41,385 opting to take the survey.
According to the poll, 94.5 per cent of respondents chose to continue pursuing full-time education last year, slightly higher than the 94.3 per cent logged in 2023.
Among those opting for further education, 92.2 per cent had decided to study in Hong Kong, up 3 per cent from 2023 and an increase of 6.5 per cent from 2022.
The remainder, or 7.8 per cent, opted to study in jurisdictions such as mainland China, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the United States.
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The number of students pursuing further education outside Hong Kong in 2024 stood at 3,061, a 15 per cent decrease from the 3,609 logged in 2023.
Last year also marked the second straight year of record lows since the annual survey was launched in 2012.
The number of students leaving the city to continue their studies peaked in 2020, when about 6,000 Form Six graduates decided to depart Hong Kong.
The city at the time was wrestling with the Covid-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the 2019 social unrest. The Beijing-imposed national security law was also introduced on June 30 of that same year.
Shifts in study destinations
A breakdown of the number of students heading overseas by destination showed that Canada had registered the largest drop at 35.8 per cent.
Other locations that saw significant declines in interest included Taiwan at 29 per cent and the UK at 23.2 per cent.
But the US was the least popular among the top destinations, with a record low of 67 students planning to study there – a drop of 23 per cent from 2023.
The mainland remained the most popular destination for those choosing to study outside Hong Kong.
The survey found that 1,339 students planned to go to the mainland to continue their education. It also recorded the smallest drop in interest, at 6.4 per cent, among all the major destinations covered.
While the total number of students studying on the mainland was lower than in 2023, its share of the percentage among all destinations crept up from 39.7 per cent to 43.7 per cent.
Impact of declining student numbers
Ng Po-shing, a student guidance consultant with youth-focused NGO Hok Yau Club, said that as many families had immigrated overseas in recent years, their children were more likely to be already studying at secondary schools in those jurisdictions rather than in Hong Kong.
The general decrease in student population in Hong Kong also meant that pupils who wished to stay in the city were more likely to get places at local universities, he said.
Between 2019-20 and 2022-23, more than 80,000 kindergarten, primary and secondary students withdrew from schools in the city, according to the Education Bureau.
Two peak school years in terms of student losses were 2021-22, when 33,600 withdrew, and 2020-21, when 30,500 left.
Samuel Chan Sze-ming, founder of Hong Kong-based Britannia StudyLink, echoed the sentiment, noting that local universities had been “less selective” in recent years.
“We’ve had a lot of Hongkongers leave Hong Kong, [so] these spaces need filling, and universities are therefore prepared to be a little more flexible to attract graduates,” he said.
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Chan said his agency had witnessed the decline in interest first-hand, noting the number of clients looking to study in the UK in 2024 had dropped by about 30 per cent from the previous year.
But since the introduction of the UK’s BN(O) visa scheme for Hongkongers, he had seen a new market emerge among secondary students already in the country who were applying for universities in the US, he said.
“That market was non-existent before,” he said.
Lawmaker Chu Kwok-Keung, who represents the education sector, agreed that the declining student numbers in recent years had created more opportunities for those studying locally.
Chu also highlighted that more than 40 per cent of those studying outside the city were opting to head for the mainland, which showed students were “seizing the development opportunities” available across the border.
“Coupled with the impact of the recent Sino-US trade war, I believe that the number of people studying on the mainland will continue to rise and that this will become a trend,” he said.
