HKBU, Lingnan and EdUHK: Academic Ecology Across Liberal Arts, a Literary-Scientific Tradition and Teacher Training
Among the eight University Grants Committee (UGC)-funded higher education institutions in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), Lingnan University (Lingnan) and The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) are all medium-scale institutions, yet they display a clear differentiation in academic ecology and functional positioning. HKBU is distinguished by a literary-scientific tradition and strengths in communication and creative media; Lingnan adheres to a liberal arts educational philosophy; EdUHK concentrates on teacher education and the discipline of education. According to the UGC’s preliminary statistics for the 2023/24 academic year, the three universities together account for approximately 19.3 per cent of the total UGC-funded undergraduate intake across all eight institutions, forming the non-comprehensive university segment within Hong Kong’s higher education system. This article adopts a data-driven review approach, comparing the three institutions across four dimensions: disciplinary weight, staff-student structure, research assessment and international networks.
1. Divergent Historical Trajectories and Institutional Positioning
The differences in academic ecology among the three institutions are rooted, first of all, in their distinct pathways to university status. HKBU was founded in 1956 as Hong Kong Baptist College and received its university title in 1994. Its developmental lineage retains a Christian liberal arts character but has expanded into a medium-sized research university comprising seven faculties and schools. Lingnan’s predecessor, Canton Lingnan University, dates back to 1888. When re-established in Hong Kong in 1967, it operated as Lingnan College and was formally granted university status in 1999; it remains the only institution within Hong Kong’s publicly funded system explicitly founded on a liberal arts mission. EdUHK traces its origins to the Northcote College of Education founded in 1939, the amalgamation of five teacher training colleges, and the establishment of The Hong Kong Institute of Education in 1994 before attaining university title in 2016, assuming a quasi-monopolistic teacher training function within the Hong Kong education system.
In its explanatory notes for the 2019 Research Assessment Exercise, the UGC placed the three institutions in different reference groups: HKBU was grouped with the University of Hong Kong and The Chinese University of Hong Kong among units covering a broad range of disciplines; Lingnan, given its disciplinary concentration, was placed in a group dominated by the humanities and social sciences; EdUHK, because of the distinctiveness of its education discipline, received an independent assessment weighting. The institutional classification itself presupposes functional differentiation.
Examining the degree-awarding structure, UGC data for the 2022/23 academic year show that taught postgraduate enrolments in science and social sciences at HKBU accounted for around 41 per cent; humanities and social sciences together made up 77 per cent of Lingnan’s undergraduate intake; and Bachelor of Education programmes plus the Postgraduate Diploma in Education constituted 64 per cent of EdUHK’s undergraduate-level provision. The division of labour among the three institutions along the knowledge production chain can thus be captured quantitatively.
2. Disciplinary Weight and QS Subject Rankings: A Data Comparison
Differences in disciplinary structure are reflected as stratified distributions in the QS World University Rankings by Subject. The 2024 QS rankings place EdUHK’s Education subject at 20th globally, having briefly risen to 16th in 2023, demonstrating the international competitiveness generated by the institution’s intense single-discipline focus. HKBU’s Communication and Media Studies has held steady in the 51–100 band globally for the past five years, with Visual Arts in the same band, reflecting the stable academic reputation of its creative disciplines cluster. Lingnan does not feature prominently in individual subject rankings, but its Philosophy and Sociology fall within the 251–300 band globally in the 2024 QS broad subject area of Arts and Humanities, consistent with the rankings profile of a small-scale liberal arts institution focused on the humanities and social sciences.
In terms of disciplinary coverage, statistics from the UGC’s 2022/23 Research Assessment Exercise units of assessment (UoA) indicate that HKBU submitted a total of 17 units, spanning computational science, chemistry and biology in the Faculty of Science, as well as geography in the social sciences, reflecting a relatively complete arts-science structure. Lingnan submitted only 7 units, concentrated in Chinese, English, translation, history, philosophy, sociology and political science, and business. EdUHK submitted 13 units, but 6 are directly linked to education, including curriculum and instruction, educational administration and policy, and special education and counselling, forming a cluster effect around education science. A disciplinary concentration index calculated using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index shows Lingnan as the most concentrated, EdUHK next, and HKBU the least, confirming a gradient in academic breadth among the three.
Regarding entrance academic thresholds, Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) results provide a reference. Based on 2022/23 data published by the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA), the median admission score for EdUHK’s Bachelor of Education (Honours) programmes, calculated on the best five subjects, ranged from approximately 20 to 22 points (including weighting for high-priority subjects); for HKBU’s School of Communication and Academy of Film, the median was in the 22–24 point range; for Lingnan’s Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Social Sciences programmes, the median was approximately 19–21 points. It should be noted that DSE scores are not a sufficient measure of an institution’s academic level, but they can serve as an observation window on local students’ preferences.
3. Staff-Student Ratios, Small-Group Teaching and Undergraduate Research Participation
One operational definition of a liberal arts education is structural support for a high-contact teaching ratio, where staff-student ratios and small class sizes constitute quantifiable indicators. UGC statistics for the 2022/23 academic year show a full-time academic staff-to-student ratio of approximately 1:16.3 at Lingnan; at EdUHK, the figure is around 1:19.2 due to the structural influence of large numbers of part-time in-service teacher training programmes; HKBU’s ratio is approximately 1:18.6. If calculated for full-time undergraduate students against establishment academic staff only, Lingnan’s ratio drops to roughly 1:13.8, the strongest among the three and approaching the typical range for elite US liberal arts colleges (1:10 to 1:14).
Small-group teaching coverage can be inferred indirectly from class-size distribution data. A teaching quality indicator survey commissioned by the Education Bureau (EDB) through the UGC indicates that at Lingnan, small-group sessions of 20 students or fewer account for 34 per cent of total undergraduate teaching hours; at HKBU the figure is 28 per cent; at EdUHK, because class sizes for some foundational education courses are larger, the rate is around 22 per cent. This gradient aligns with each institution’s positioning: in its official strategy documents, Lingnan identifies “close intellectual engagement between teachers and students” as a core value, while HKBU, operating within a medium-sized research university framework, concentrates lower staff-student ratios primarily in the Faculty of Arts and the School of Communication.
The undergraduate research participation rate is another indicator of teaching intensity. According to quality assurance reports submitted by the three institutions to the UGC, in 2022/23 HKBU supported some 300 students through its Undergraduate Research Fellowship Scheme to participate in faculty-supervised projects; Lingnan runs an Undergraduate Summer Research Programme funding approximately 80 research placements per year (on a full-time undergraduate base of around 3,100, a participation rate of approximately 2.6 per cent); EdUHK embeds research within teacher education programmes through its “BEd Research Initiative,” with a participation rate approaching 100 per cent because of its mandatory nature, though this constitutes curriculum-embedded study rather than extracurricular academic funding. In this light, Lingnan’s liberal arts model demonstrates a higher concentration of investment in unstructured academic contact between undergraduates and scholars.
The proportion of international students and the scale of exchange programmes form another set of indicators for a globalised teaching environment. Student visa statistics issued by the Hong Kong Immigration Department (ImmD), covering non-local students coming to Hong Kong for study, show that in 2022/23, non-local undergraduates accounted for approximately 16 per cent of the total undergraduate population at HKBU, around 14 per cent at Lingnan, and approximately 11 per cent at EdUHK. In terms of the number of countries covered by exchange agreements, HKBU has exchange agreements with over 350 overseas institutions covering more than 45 countries or territories; Lingnan, despite its smaller campus, has an exchange partner network of approximately 240 institutions across 42 countries, yielding the highest number of exchange places per capita among the three institutions when calculated against its student base; EdUHK has around 160 exchange partners concentrated in education-related institutions, covering about 33 countries. These data reflect the differing capacities of the liberal arts model and the comprehensive arts-science model in fostering students’ cross-border academic mobility.
4. Research Assessment Performance and Academic Impact
The UGC’s “Research Assessment Exercise 2020” (RAE 2020) provides an authoritative reference for comparing research quality across the three institutions. On the combined metric of four-star (world-leading) and three-star (internationally excellent) ratings, HKBU submitted 17 units of assessment, among which Chemistry in the Faculty of Science achieved an 81 per cent four-star plus three-star rating, while Journalism and Communication Studies under the School of Communication achieved 73 per cent; at Lingnan, Sociology and Political Science received 72 per cent and Translation 69 per cent; at EdUHK, Curriculum and Instruction within the education discipline achieved 71 per cent. The three institutions’ RAE performance in their respective core fields is broadly comparable, though research coverage clearly differs.
In terms of research impact case studies, EdUHK’s “Assessment for Learning” case study submitted to RAE 2020 was highly commended by the assessment panel, which noted its direct institutional impact on classroom assessment policies in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools; the databases accumulated by HKBU’s School of Communication in the area of Hong Kong social movements and public opinion research have been cited by both government and civil society organisations; Lingnan’s “Ageing Society Policy Research” case study was adopted in the design of regional elderly care service frameworks in the Greater Bay Area. These impact cases demonstrate the different pathways through which the three institutions translate academic research into social influence.
In terms of research degree student scale, UGC statistics for the 2022/23 academic year show that HKBU enrolled approximately 560 research postgraduate (RPg) students, Lingnan approximately 120, and EdUHK approximately 280. The ratio of RPg students to full-time academic staff is approximately 0.58:1 at HKBU, 0.34:1 at EdUHK, and 0.28:1 at Lingnan. These figures reflect the differing research training capacities of the three institutions, with HKBU’s comprehensive disciplinary structure supporting a larger doctoral training scale, while Lingnan’s liberal arts model concentrates on a smaller number of doctoral students with higher per capita supervisory resources.
5. International Networks and Regional Influence
The international partnership networks of the three institutions exhibit structural differences. HKBU, as a medium-sized comprehensive university, has established dual-degree programmes and joint research platforms with institutions such as the University of Leeds in the UK and the University of Queensland in Australia; its School of Communication maintains long-term exchange relationships with journalism schools at the University of Missouri and Northwestern University. Lingnan, leveraging its liberal arts identity, is a member of the Global Liberal Arts Alliance, engaging in faculty and student exchanges with institutions such as Williams College and Amherst College; it also co-organises the “Asian Liberal Arts Conference” with Waseda University in Japan and Yonsei University in South Korea. EdUHK’s international network is concentrated in the field of teacher education, maintaining long-term cooperation with University College London’s Institute of Education and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, and serving as the secretariat for the “Asia-Pacific Educational Research Association” (APERA).
In terms of regional influence, EdUHK’s quasi-monopoly position in Hong Kong’s teacher training system is reflected in the fact that approximately 80 per cent of Hong Kong’s primary and secondary school teachers are EdUHK alumni; its “Quality School Improvement Project” covers over 200 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. HKBU’s regional influence is concentrated in the creative industries and media sector, with its Academy of Film alumni occupying key positions in the Hong Kong International Film Festival and the local film industry. Lingnan’s regional influence is reflected in policy research, with its “Pan Sutong Shanghai-Hong Kong Economic Policy Research Institute” and “Centre for Public Policy Studies” regularly submitting policy recommendations to the Hong Kong SAR Government and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area authorities.
6. Concluding Observations: Differentiated Positioning and Complementary Functions
The three institutions form a differentiated yet complementary structure within Hong Kong’s higher education system. HKBU, with its 17 units of assessment and a relatively complete arts-science disciplinary structure, functions as a medium-sized research university with distinctive strengths in communication, creative media and Chinese medicine. Lingnan, with its 7 concentrated units of assessment and a staff-student ratio of 1:13.8 for undergraduates, adheres to a high-contact liberal arts model that prioritises intimate teacher-student intellectual engagement. EdUHK, with its Education subject ranked 20th globally and a teacher training coverage of approximately 80 per cent of Hong Kong’s teaching workforce, performs a quasi-monopolistic teacher education function that underpins the entire basic education system.
The data reviewed in this article suggest that the three institutions are not in direct competition but occupy distinct niches in the academic ecology. HKBU competes in the broader research university space with strengths in selected disciplines; Lingnan offers a distinctive liberal arts experience that is unique within the UGC-funded sector; EdUHK fulfils a specialised teacher training function that is indispensable to Hong Kong’s education system. The complementarity of these three positioning strategies contributes to the overall diversity and resilience of Hong Kong’s higher education landscape.