Back to the Future: Higher Education Policy and Trends in Hong Kong

Opportunity Structures since 1971

David Post
Professor of Education Policy
Penn State University

Abstract
This paper discusses the social mobility and social mobility and the political
consequences of three education events in Hong Kong: the extension of free and
compulsory schooling in 1978, the construction of universities after the Tiananmen
repression amid popular unrest, and the creation of two-year degree programs after Hong
Kong became a Special Administrative Region. I show the repercussions of these events
for civil society organizations and political parties. Inferences are drawn about the social
integration of new immigrants from Mainland China, as well as the opportunities for
women and for lowerincome students, based on analysis of 35 years of Hong Kong
Census.

Bio
David Post in a professor of education policy at Penn State University, and was a visiting
Fulbright professor at UST in 2002. Post current edits the journal Comparative Education
Review.