Hong Kong government rejects compulsory year-long internship for university degrees
Hong Kong's government has rejected calls to reform university curricula based solely on labour market data, arguing that degree courses should not be tailored to short-term job vacancies. It said compulsory year-long internships would undermine academic depth and flexibility.
The Hong Kong government has rejected a legislative call to reform four-year undergraduate programmes by introducing a compulsory year-long full-time internship, arguing that university education should not be driven solely by labour market supply-and-demand data.
In a written reply to the Legislative Council on 4 November 2026, the government responded to questions from lawmaker Lo, who cited a September 2026 Labour and Welfare Bureau report showing that entry-level job vacancies had fallen by more than 60 per cent, from about 80,000 in 2022 to about 31,000 in 2025, amid rapid artificial-intelligence development. The report also projected a labour shortage of about 130,000 people by 2028, reflecting supply-demand imbalance and skills mismatch.
The government said curriculum reform should be based on professional judgment regarding academic structure, student development and teaching resources, not on a single indicator of labour market data. It stressed that university education serves to cultivate well-rounded individuals and advance civilisation, not to produce tailor-made manpower for a particular point in time.
On whether it would consider a "three-year classroom learning, one-year full-time internship" model, the government said that while many programmes—such as education, healthcare and social work—already require internships, a mandatory year-long internship for all disciplines would compress learning time in fields like the humanities and pure sciences, which emphasise academic depth and theoretical training. It also cited challenges in ensuring stable internship placements, consistent assessment standards and suitability for non-vocational subjects.
The government said it had not collected data on how many University Grants Committee-funded undergraduate programmes currently require internships and related assessments as a graduation requirement. It added that it encouraged universities to maintain flexibility in arranging internships according to disciplinary characteristics.
On curriculum content, the government said universities continuously review and update their programmes in response to market needs and technological development. It noted that in the 2025/26 to 2027/28 triennium, universities had launched 27 new bachelor's programmes related to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) or the "eight major centres"—many integrating technology with fields such as humanities, finance and healthcare to strengthen AI application, interdisciplinary knowledge and problem-solving skills.
The government also highlighted that five Hong Kong universities placed in the top 10 of the 2027 QS Asia University Rankings, with three in the top five. It argued that this success depends on producing high-quality research, and that tailoring curricula solely to manpower shortage data could create new mismatches and reduce university education to vocational training, undermining its fundamental value.
