Higher Education in Post-1997 Hong Kong: Politics, Academic Freedom, and Civic Engagement

This chapter examines the relationships between politics, academic freedom, and civic engagement in higher education in Hong Kong since 1997. It focuses on government-funded (via the University Grants Committee (UGC)) public institutions, which dominate the higher education sector. Academic freedom and university autonomy in UGC-funded institutions are challenged by increasing UGC oversight of their management, teaching and research, and by changing social and political contexts caused by closer economic, social and political interactions between Hong Kong and mainland China. Developments in Hong Kong suggest that academic freedom and university autonomy are socio-political constructions shaped, interpreted and/or exercised by different actors in their social and political contexts.