City University of Hong Kong (CityU) began its latest mainland recruitment campaign in mid-February. This follows last year’s successes recruiting quality mainland students when the University joined the National Joint Entrance Examination Scheme (NJEE scheme).

The University has formulated a new set of strategies this year, underscoring our commitment to attracting, and providing first-rate learning opportunities for, high-calibre mainland students.

As part of the new campaign, a CityU delegation travelled to Nanchang in Jiangxi province from 14 and 15 February to meet with the Jiangxi Student Admission Office and the city’s two top high schools; and over 50 CityU staff from different departments and faculties visited Beijing, Xian, Chongqing, Shanghai, Xiamen and Shenzhen to participate in the 11th China International Education Exhibition Tour (CIEET) between 18 February and 15 March.

This Exhibition gave CityU an opportunity to showcase its strengths and achievements, and establish a platform for communication between CityU faculties and prospective mainland students and their parents.

Over 100 students and parents attended the University’s promotional seminar on “A World Vision: Study at CityU” in Beijing at the opening of CIEET. At the seminar, parents said they realized getting admitted to CityU was becoming much more competitive, judging by the high number of students who enrolled last year.

Dr Zhu Guobin, Director of CityU’s External Liaison and Cooperation Office, said the University might expand its admission quota to cater to quality applicants. During his stay in Beijing, Dr Zhu was interviewed by the two popular Internet portals, Netease and Sohu.

“This year the scope of recruitment through the NJEE scheme has been expanded to include Jiangxi, Yuannan and Guizhou,” said Professor Richard Ho, Dean of Undergraduate Education. “This makes a total of 20 provinces and cities eligible for our recruitment exercise. We have also increased the undergraduate quota by 20 to a total of 170,” said Professor Ho, adding that student quality would be highly pertinent to applications.

Dr Zhu said CityU would step up its promotion campaign on the mainland, strengthen cooperation with student admission offices in the 20 provinces and cities, and adopt appropriate promotion strategies.

There are plans to allocate more promotional resources to major provinces and cities, in particular newspapers and magazines run by

the mainland admission offices, and to take part in live interviews through major web portals, conduct recruitment seminars and participate in open-day exhibitions at prominent mainland universities.

In addition, there will be visits to leading high schools. “CityU is the first university from Hong Kong to hold recruitment talks at our school, so CityU will make an impact and boost our students’ aspirations to study there,” said Mr Tang

Sainan, Principal of Jiangxi Normal University Attached Middle School, who received CityU’s delegation in mid-February.

Meanwhile, participating in education exhibitions was a long-term strategy, said Dr Zhu, adding that he was encouraged to see such an impressive CityU presence at CIEET.

Professor Johnny Chan, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering, who went to the Beijing exhibition, said the Exhibition was a great opportunity to promote the University and recruit high-quality students. “I can see prospective students and parents showing a lot of interest in our ranking and achievements in scientific research,” he said.

Professor Mathew Lee, Associate Dean of Faculty of Business, said he was glad to see that CityU’s recognition on the mainland was on the rise. “The Beijing exhibition has been a huge success. We received a lot of inquiries from students and parents on the career prospect of our professional programmes, both undergraduate and postgraduate and we are confident the Exhibition will boost our recruitment drive for quality mainland students,” he said.

Dr Arthur Cheung, a teaching fellow in the Department of Public and Social Administration, who has participated in CIEET before, said mainland students and parents were now more familiar with CityU. “They are also very interested in the overseas exchange programme offered by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,” Dr Cheung said.

CIEET has been organized by the Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange in the Ministry of Education since 1999. It offers an important communication channel between mainland students, their parents and overseas education providers. Over 350 higher education institutions and organizations from 27 countries and regions participated this year.