For students who wish to open their eyes through studying abroad, Hong Kong is an excellent destination to study, experience and launch your career. We are an international city that sits at the crossroads of Chinese and Western cultures, and our universities teach mainly in English. We have a diverse higher education system with world-class institutions, well represented in various league tables. We have a well-established quality assurance mechanism and the qualifications acquired are internationally recognised. In addition, we are an international business and financial centre, which would be a perfect place for you to build up your network and take advantage of the numerous career opportunities.

Hong Kong is enhancing its position as a regional education hub and we continue our efforts to internationalise and diversify the higher education sector while upholding quality. To this end, we have introduced a basket of measures since 2008 to attract international students. For instance, we have doubled non-local student quotas for local publicly-funded institutions from 10% to 20% and have established a scholarship fund to award government scholarships to outstanding local and non-local students. We have relaxed employment restrictions for non-local students during their studies. Non-local students are permitted to take up part-time on campus employment and also employment during summer months. We have also relaxed immigration restrictions for non-local graduates to stay or return to work in Hong Kong and have granted fresh non-local graduates 12 months' stay without restrictions.

Universities welcome students from worldwide systems. All institutions are autonomous and each has its own admission criteria. Admission is generally considered on a competitive basis and depending on relative strengths of the applicants. While the primary consideration is often academic performance, the tertiary institutions also take into account achievements in non-academic areas, such as community services, arts and sports.

How Should I Apply
Regarding the application procedures for non-local students, please visit the websites of the following publicly-funded institutions for their entrance requirements for overseas applicants.

When Should I Apply
In view of the "double-cohort" in the 2012/13 academic year, there will be admission to three-year programmes (under the old academic structure) and four-year programmes (under the NAS). Overseas students can apply to individual institutions directly in 2011 for admission to either the three-year or the four-year undergraduate programmes. Starting from the 2013/14 academic year, only four-year undergraduate programmes will be offered at local universities. For enquiries about advanced standing or advanced credits to specific qualifications or attainments, you can approach the respective institutions directly.

You can find the information you need on the Information Portal for Accredited Self-financing Post-secondary Programmes, which is a useful guide to the self-financing post-secondary education sector. There are also institutions which provide publicly-funded sub-degree programmes.

Hong Kong's universities offer a wide range of research opportunities of world class standards. Our researchers have made new frontiers in many different fields, and their productivity and research impact are highly recognised in the high rankings of our institutions in various league tables. To support our institutions to step up their research efforts, we have set aside HK$18 billion (about US$2.3 billion) for a research endowment fund to support research and development activities at our tertiary institutions. In addition, we have launched the “Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme” in 2009. The scheme aims to attract the best and brightest students around the world to pursue their PhD programmes in Hong Kong's education institutions.