Post Secondary Colleges (Amendment) Bill 2025 to be Gazetteed, Aiming for Enhanced Education Quality and Governance.

Post Secondary Colleges (Amendment) Bill 2025 to be gazetted Friday

A spokesman for the Education Bureau (EDB) said today (March 3) that the Post Secondary Colleges (Amendment) Bill 2025 will be published in the Gazette on Friday (March 7).

The spokesman said, "Education is the key to nurturing talent and building a strong nation. The Bill aims to facilitate the healthy and sustainable development of the self-financing post-secondary education sector as well as support its capacity expansion and quality enhancement, with a view to harnessing the self-financing sector's advantages in terms of its flexibility and diversity to cultivate talent for the country and Hong Kong, and make more proactive contributions towards Hong Kong's development into an international post-secondary education hub.

"Through amending the Post Secondary Colleges Ordinance (Cap.320), the Bill reforms the regulatory regime for the self-financing post-secondary education sector to improve governance, ensuring the quality, transparency and accountability of self-financing institutions; removes barriers suitably to enhance efficiency and effectiveness; and forges a unified regulatory framework to promote coherence in quality assurance, governance, positioning and overall co-ordination."

Specifically, the Bill will enhance the registration requirements for institutions to strengthen the eligibility for registration and gatekeeping mechanism, with an aim of ensuring the quality of registered institutions. In particular, institutions are required to attain and maintain an institutional review status granted by the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications to demonstrate their competence in operating post-secondary programmes. At the same time, the Bill will provide for a set of fair and transparent procedures, including the imposition of conditions or restrictions on the registration of underperforming institutions, such that the EDB may support institutions to improve their operations in accordance with the mechanism. Through stringent quality assurance, the Government envisages that the recognition of self-financing post-secondary education would be enhanced locally and internationally, reinforcing the parallel development of the self-financing and publicly funded sectors.

Meanwhile, the Bill will rationalise the arrangements for self-financing institutions to award degrees by delegating the relevant approving authority from the Chief Executive in Council to the Secretary for Education, and also repeal certain provisions that are obsolete or overly prescriptive, with a view to more fully unleashing the advantageous flexibility of the self-financing sector to launch programmes and nurture talent that meets market needs.

In addition, the Bill will make consequential amendments to the Education Ordinance (Cap. 279), alongside with support measures to be introduced by the EDB, to support and facilitate the migration to Cap.320 of schools registered under Cap. 279 operating sub-degree programmes and self-financing arms of publicly funded institutions, thereby providing for a unified regulatory framework for all institutions operating local self-financing post-secondary education programmes at the degree and sub-degree levels.

The EDB has extensively consulted relevant stakeholders on the legislative amendment proposals, including the Committee on Self-financing Post-secondary Education, the Legislative Council (LegCo) Panel on Education, and the self-financing post-secondary education sector. The views received have been incorporated into the Bill as appropriate. Stakeholders generally support the proposals.

The Bill will be introduced into the LegCo for First Reading and Second Reading on March 19. The Government will fully support the work of the LegCo in scrutinising the Bill and looks forward to the LegCo's support and passage of the Bill.

HKSAR Government welcomes court's decision to dismiss Chow Hang Tung's application for judicial review on clothing policy for persons in custody

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government welcomes the judgment handed down by the Court of First Instance of the High Court today (January 13) to dismiss Chow Hang Tung's application for judicial review on the clothing policy for persons in custody (PICs).

The court judgment pointed out that the current clothing policy for PICs, including the requirement for female PICs to wear trousers in summer daytime, was formulated by the Correctional Services Department (CSD) as authorised by the Prison Rules. The Court was satisfied that the CSD had the expertise and experience in the relevant context, and that it had carefully considered various factors, taken into account of professional opinion when making the decision, as well as reviewed the policy continuously. The Court ruled that Chow Hang Tung had failed to demonstrate that the current policy constituted less favourable treatment of a particular gender. The Court pointed out that there was currently no factual evidence to support any assertion that there was widespread concern about the health effects of wearing trousers in summer. In addition, the rule was not absolute, but instead allowed individual PICs to apply for exceptional arrangements in special circumstances. At the same time, the Court also rejected Chow Hang Tung's assertion that she had requested to the CSD in July and August 2024 to wear shorts and had been refused.

A spokesman for the Security Bureau said, "The ruling of the Court of First Instance confirmed that the CSD's approach is reasonable, justified and lawful. According to Rule 26 of the Prison Rules, the CSD must provide every PIC with a uniform that meets a scale imposed by the Commissioner of Correctional Services. Over the years, the CSD had appointed task groups from time to time to review the clothing arrangements of PICs. These reviews gave ample consideration to numerous factors, including the type of correctional institutions, PICs' varying daily routines and activities involved, the need for thermal, physical and psychological comfort for PICs of different genders, privacy and decency of PICs and the security, good order and discipline of the prison, so as to continuously refine clothing arrangements according to the prevailing circumstances."

The spokesman stated, "Chow Hang Tung's assertion that she requested to wear shorts in summer and was rejected by the CSD is entirely inconsistent with the facts and was rejected by the Court. Besides, the current clothing policy for PICs already provides a degree of flexibility. For example, a PIC may make an application to wear other clothing on medical or non-medical grounds to the CSD, and the CSD would make appropriate arrangements having considered the actual circumstances and relevant factors."

The CSD will continue to impartially implement the relevant rules of the Prison Rules in accordance with the law and commit to providing a secure, safe, humane, decent and healthy custodial environment.

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