International Higher Education, March 1997

Academic Cultures in Singapore and Hong Kong: Some Personal Impressions

Our focus here is on the difference in academic cultures between Hong Kong and Singapore. On the surface, one might expect the academic cultures in both countries to be almost identical given their colonial heritage. After all, Singapore was a British colony for many years and Hong Kong remains so today, that is, until July 1997. Although Hong Kong is presently a British colony and will soon become a special administrative region within the Peoples Republic of China, here it will be referred as a country for ease of comparison. Both countries share a predominantly Chinese culture, have burgeoning economies, few natural resources except their people, and are located roughly in the same part of the world. Yet, in terms of our own experience, both have developed quite different academic environments. Before describing what we see as some of the differences, it should be noted that our discussion is based on personal impressions only and, as such, is limited by our individual circumstances. While we have both worked in Singapore and Hong Kong, our experience is restricted to faculties of education in particular institutions, and therefore, we do not seek to generalize across all institutions or even across academic disciplines.

The most obvious difference we have found between academic cultures in Singapore and Hong Kong is the dominant expectations in terms of research, publishing, and teaching.1 In all three areas, Hong Kong academics appear to be under greater pressure than their Singaporean counterparts.

Since the early 1990s, Hong Kong academics have been pressured to compete increasingly for scarce external funding, mainly from the University Grants Council (UGC). The acquisition of extremely competitive external funding has been explicitly built into promotion criteria and, increasingly, departmental funding formulas. As a result academics have been forced to reevaluate their traditional work practice in terms of emphasis, international relevance, and quality. One side effect of the growing importance of external funding in Hong Kong appears to be a move toward greater research collaboration with overseas researchers and even other Hong Kong institutions. As far as we are aware, academics in Singapore have yet to experience similar pressure with regard either to professional practice or departmental resources. Fewer external research funding opportunities are available in Singapore, perhaps reflecting a less intense emphasis on large-scale, internationally relevant research projects. While valuable research is conducted in Singapore, in our experience, it is more likely to be personally motivated rather than institutionally or structurally driven and focused on local in-school rather than international issues.

Differences in emphasis on acquiring external funding carry over to expectations for teaching and publishing in international journals. Recent centralized reviews of teaching quality and open exhibition of student evaluations have added to the stress on Hong Kong academics and forced them to balance their roles carefully. Although pressure to research, publish, and teach more effectively certainly exists in Singapore, it appears much less intense than in Hong Kong. The primary role of academics in Singapore remains focused on teaching, internal research, and service to the local community. Certainly, the Singaporean academic culture, while still rigorous, appears less stressful because it lacks the harsh externally imposed pressure to acquire and produce. Hong Kong academics have much greater demand placed on them to publish widely in refereed journals than their Singaporean counterparts. Newly established links between productivity, funding, and career advancement in Hong Kong have driven home a message all too common in Western universities: "publish or perish". Indeed, some have perished, and those who remain have quickly learned to play the often selfish game of collecting numbers at the expense of professional sharing and internal collaboration.

A further difference exists in the type of research that is encouraged. Although both Singapore and Hong Kong academics approach local school issues, the tradition in Hong Kong includes considerably more open criticism and debate of policy and political issues than is common in Singapore. In Singapore, academics appear to avoid research that targets political issues or that unduly criticizes government policy. This is probably due to the different forms of government in the two countries. Singapore has a very centralized government that does not actively promote debate and criticism of government policy. Hong Kong, however, has a tradition of open debate, and academics become actively involved in commenting on and critiquing government policy. This is particularly so in the Chinese press. In terms of academic culture, the environment in Hong Kong produces a more openly critical academic community both in public comment and research. Whether change in sovereignty will effect this openness remains to be seen. The academic culture in this sense may be seen as a reflection of the more general societal cultures of the two countries. Singapore has a centralized government and education system with relatively tight control over many facets of society in general, whereas Hong Kong is often characterized as one of the least-regulated societies in the world.

The most obvious difference between the academic cultures discussed here lies in externally imposed demands for accountability and productivity. In the case of Hong Kong, this is due mainly to the number of institutions and the intensive competition between them. There are now seven universities in Hong Kong that offer various qualifications in education-related disciplines and teacher education. There are also two other tertiary institutions offering qualifications in education: the newly restructured Institute of Education and the Open Learning Institute. Singapore has two fully fledged universities, and only one of these offers teacher education degrees; however, like Hong Kong, education degrees are also offered by the Singapore equivalent of the Open Learning Institute. To gain research and operational funds, status, and the best students, Hong Kong institutions must compete not only with each other but also with an increasing number of international universities. This has contributed to a shifting of the academic culture toward productivity and increased quality of teaching. The picture in Singapore is quite different. Internally, the Singaporean institution has a near monopoly and has yet to feel the bite of competition in attracting students and funding, teaching quality, and research productivity. Put simply, the lack of competition and subsequent lesser value placed on measurable outputs minimizes the pressure on Singaporean academics, creating a more comfortable place to work.

Perhaps a deeper factor influencing the shape of the academic culture is that Hong Kong remains a British colony and, as such, more directly inherits trends and policies experienced in the United Kingdom. The considerable restructuring and production emphasis experienced in U.K. higher education is reflected in the policies and structures in Hong Kong, despite differences in economic conditions. Singapore, on the other hand, although an ex-British colony, appears to have moved beyond direct or overt British policy influence and to have set more of its own direction. These differences are indicative only of the diverse academic cultures in Hong Kong and Singapore. There are, of course, others that we have not touched upon, such as language, bureaucracy, collegiality, and deeper cultural practices related to conflict resolution. There are also similarities. Both cultures, for example, have in place a system of confidential staff appraisals in which the heads of department write reports on tenured staff with regard to their productivity, teaching, and so on. These reports go into confidential files that are not accessible or shared with the staff member involved. Equally, education, as a discipline, has a rather low status in both countries when compared to hard science faculties. Both academic cultures have strong service traditions and relatively tight links with the ministry of education.

From our perspective, the academic working culture in both countries offers different types of reward and opportunity, and success is largely determined by the ability of the individual academician to recognize and work within the parameters of the specific cultural context. In this respect, the academic cultures in Singapore and Hong Kong, while differentiated, share many similarities with academic cultures in the West.

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