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Note: This article represents the view of the author and not the University of Hong Kong.

The HKSAR Government has finally released the much-anticipated "Report of the Task Force on Population Policy" late last month, in which the quality of population needed for mobilizing knowledge-based economy was elaborated in detail. Such a policy will be paralleled by a number of fiscal policies, which would boost long-term economic development. However, although the population policy did manage to slightly push up Chief Secretary Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's popularity, a lack of coordinateness and consistency between the proposed policies was criticized by many academics. Even the relation between population and education policies has not been handled properly.

According to the Report, Hong Kong's total fertility rate kept falling over the past two decades, from 1.93 in 1981 to 0.93 in 2001, way below the replacement level of 2.1. Birth rate has stayed low over the years, which resulted in a worsening demographic structure for Hong Kong, as well as setting off alarm for the local education system. The Education and Manpower Bureau projected that there would be 600 primary school teachers in excess next year. All of a sudden, this issue of "shortage of students" for certain schools comes off as the most pressing and profound problem for our education system. The reason is that, should there not be enough admissions of Primary One students, the upcoming Primary Two and Three, then Form One and then tertiary students in subsequent years, would also be affected. Worse still, not only in-service teachers, but also teachers-in-training, trainers for teacher education, lecturers of the tertiary institutions, and even the tutors for children interest groups, would eventually be dragged into this whirlpool. In addition, the education policies set out in recent years tended to encourage school-administrators to run schools of different styles to cater for the diverse needs of the parents, giving rise to the instant emergence of numerous new schools. Under stiff competitions, it was inevitable that only the stronger ones survived, worsening the under-admission problem of Primary One students for certain schools. The problem stemming from low fertility has been brewing for a long time, and the Education Department should have predicted this years ago and pursued arrangements and allocations to reduce the wastage of resources.

Most of this year's newly admitted Primary One students were born in 1997, and the number of live births then was 59,250. Taking into account the 11,000 fewer live births in 2001 than in 1997 (see Table), by 2007, the under-admission problem would further deteriorate. Moreover, the future birth rate is anticipated to be far from satisfying. Apart from the economic uncertainties still haunting around, the proportion of women who received tertiary education has also overtaken that of men in recent years (see Table). This group of professional women who graduated from tertiary institutions would somewhat find it hard to search for their ideal husbands, and it would probably be not easy for them to strike a balance between their career and family after marriage. Thus, it is not unusual to find that both marital and birth rates have been falling vigorously these years, whereas the divorce rate has been on the rise steadily (see Table). On the other hand, among the new arrivals with one-way exit permits, the proportion of women of marriageable age has significantly jumped to 40% over the recent years (see Table), reflecting clearly the seriousness of the problem regarding the demographic structure. Suggestions have been made in the Report for encouraging childbirth, but were not substantial enough. Besides, measures have also been proposed to urge a mobility of populations, which include the admission of Mainland professionals and the implementation of investment immigration. These were formulated with an objective to enhance the population quality and bring economic benefits, while the mismatch between gender and education level could also be alleviated, and the marital and fertility rates would be promoted as well, such that the teachers could have sufficient students in class for teaching, and the government could have enough talents in society for manpower needs.

The Report also pointed out that, between 1997 and 2001, new arrivals from the Mainland accounted for around 93% of our population growth, of which 30% were children of school age (see Table). It is suggested in the Report that these Mainland children should be allowed to come here the sooner the better, such that they could adapt to the local education system more promptly. In addition, according to an academic study mentioned in the Report, there were few significant differences in terms of university attendance between native-born children and Mainlanders who came to Hong Kong before the age of nine. However, the Report also proposed the principle of seven-year residence requirement for new arrivals to be entitled with social benefits, which would undoubtedly block their otherwise unimpeded way to Hong Kong. Not only would it fail to alleviate the under-admission problems for primary and secondary schools, over the long run, more losers would also be produced under the existing education system.

Our tertiary institutions have paid great efforts in enhancing their academic level in recent years, hoping that they would make it to the list of world-class institutions. However, their development would surely be hindered should there be a lack of outstanding students. Thus, the Report suggested to provide more flexibility to the tertiary institutions for attracting academics and students from the Mainland and overseas such that, on one hand, cultural exchange between the academia of the two regions could be fostered, thus upgrading the level of local students; on the other hand, foreign exchange would also be brought along with these self-financing students, easing the government's heavy burden of educational funding. Nonetheless, the author does not see the need of setting an upper limit of the quotas for non-local students at 4% of the publicly funded student places, as proposed by the government. Instead, bigger autonomy should be given to the local institutions, while assuring a stable number of the publicly funded student places as well, notwithstanding the admissions of non-local students. Besides, the author would like to suggest the government to offer places in local secondary schools to students from the Mainland and overseas, so that they could adapt to the local academic system promptly and pave way to the local universities. Of course, the accommodations of the Mainland and overseas students is another problem the government needs to tackle. Yet, such demand might end up not very high among those Mainland students, as they could probably reside with their relatives living in Hong Kong.

Population Policy affects not only current education and manpower policies, but also housing provisions, medical services, social services and even the cohesiveness of our society. In the past, the government has been rather passive and reactive in handling population policies, missing many golden opportunities. It now high time for the government to take active measures to encourage birth-giving and attract talents.