Chapter 1330: The flood of colleges and universities
Li Guangyu held a meeting here about the 1991 Year of the Sheep New Year Gala, and the people who caused him trouble did not stop.
Shortly after returning to the Wheelock Building office, Gan Qin came in and reported to him that Virgin Atlantic, Tian Yian, Li Pengfei, Xin Mengjie and others jointly invested 2 billion Hong Kong dollars to establish Kowloon Airlines, with Xiangjiang International Airport as the main base.
The company is also the third airline to establish a base at Xiangjiang International Airport after Xiangjiang Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways.
The main routes of this airline will be Commonwealth routes, focusing on routes to London, South Africa, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Melbourne, Wellington, Vancouver and other cities.
At present, this company has just announced that the investment is not much. With only 2 billion Hong Kong dollars, it can buy 5 Airbus A330s. Both Xiangjiang Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways can crush Kowloon Airlines.
You must know that as of the end of 1990, Xiangjiang Airlines owned 365 civilian passenger aircraft and 30 cargo aircraft.
After years of development of Cathay Pacific's aircraft, and the capital injection from the Heung Kong Consortium, Cathay Pacific now has 120 passenger aircraft and 10 cargo aircraft.
The aircraft in the hands of the two major companies are mainly Airbus A320 and A330. This year, Xiangjiang Airlines plans to order ten Airbus A340, mainly for ultra-long-distance routes.
However, the establishment of this company is a provocation to Xiangjiang Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways. The Xiangjiang aviation market is now basically in the hands of Xiangjiang Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways. The establishment of Kowloon Airlines is obviously to grab the market.
Currently in the UK, Xiangjiang Airlines and Virgin Atlantic are one of the biggest rivals. Unexpectedly, the other parties actually came to Xiangjiang to cause trouble for him.
Since Virgin Atlantic is a British airline, and Tian Yian, Li Pengfei, Xin Mengjie and others are now very close to Patten, they will not encounter any difficulties on the route, and they will try their best to choose good time slots in terms of flight times.
At that time, it will inevitably have an impact on Xiangjiang Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways.
Not to mention the airline, this is not a troublesome thing for Li Guangyu now.
Perhaps starting from Youde, every governor has been addicted to establishing higher education institutions. Patten also came up with a new plan this time. Heung Kong Baptist College upgraded to Heung Kong Baptist University and officially became a higher education institution capable of awarding degrees.
The tenth private higher education school in Hong Kong.
At the same time, Lingnan College also became the first public institution of higher education in Hong Kong that can award degrees. It was officially renamed Lingnan University and became the ninth public institution of higher learning in Hong Kong.
At the same time, financial groups headed by HSBC and Hang Seng, with the approval of Patten and the Hong Kong government, changed the name of Hang Seng Business School to Hong Kong Hang Seng University, focusing on finance, management, economics and other majors, becoming the eleventh private higher education institution in Hong Kong.
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In addition, the Hong Kong government officially upgraded the Xiangjiang Academy of Performing Arts, established in 1984, to a university. The degree-granting higher education institution was renamed Xiangjiang University of Performing Arts, becoming the 21st statutory higher education institution in Xiangjiang and the tenth public university in Xiangjiang.
This time Patten is different from the previous governors. This time the government does not need to spend too much money, nor does it need to take out too much land to build new campuses. All of them are expansions on existing colleges, which were all post-secondary in the past.
The school cannot award degrees.
Now four universities have been upgraded at one time, bringing the number of universities in Xiangjiang that can award degrees to 21, making Xiangjiang's degree supply more abundant.
Think about the early 1980s. At that time, the only universities in Hong Kong that could award degrees were Hong Kong University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The others were just tertiary colleges and were not qualified to award degrees.
Since 1984, the number of degree-granting schools in Xiangjiang has expanded rapidly. In just a few years, the number has reached 21. This expansion speed is simply shocking. The key is that Western countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States still recognize diplomas from 21 schools. Li Guangyu even
I don’t know how the successive governors managed public relations.
Don’t think that it is easy to establish a degree-granting university in Hong Kong. Degrees in this area must be recognized mainly by the British and American institutions before it can be considered a real university. If a university degree is not recognized by the British Commonwealth and American institutions, it will be like this
The school cannot be called a university at all.
Li Guangyu and his private Ninth School have also carried out public relations. Now the Ninth School degree is not only recognized by Hong Kong Island, Japan and South Korea, Southeast Asia, but also the Commonwealth, the European Community, the United States, etc.
Of course, there are certain majors that have some problems in some countries, and the other parties may not buy into them.
Currently there is no problem in the Commonwealth. The establishment and upgrading of universities in Hong Kong are subject to review by relevant agencies in Hong Kong and the UK, so Hong Kong degrees can be recognized in all member states of the Commonwealth.
However, the higher education in Hong Kong has developed rapidly in recent years, and there have been many problems in the quality of education. Even the leading universities, Xiangjiang University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, have also declined in the world rankings in recent years.
The main reason is that major universities are poaching people from two universities. One university may not poach many people, but the accumulated number of elites is dozens of elites, which is enough to strain the two universities.
Especially for private universities, most of them have wealthy owners who just throw money at them to recruit outstanding talents to their own schools.
The four universities that have been upgraded this time, not to mention the two public ones, but the two private ones are not easy to deal with. Hang Seng University was created by HSBC, Standard Chartered and Hang Seng Bank. Now Li Guangyu has a good relationship with them.
The water in the river is good or bad. There is competition among each other, but the competition is not great.
As for Hong Kong Baptist University, it currently implements an all-British education, and all classes are taught in English. It is not the same as Li Guangyu.
As for the University of Performing Arts, it is obviously for Li Guangyu, the School of Film and Television, the School of Music, and the University of Communication, and it is very likely that it serves the other three channels.
There are currently 21 legally mandated colleges and universities, and 12 of them all teach in English. Only Li Guangyu and his nine schools teach in Cantonese, and the textbooks are in Chinese characters. The other party has now suppressed Li Guangyu's nine schools.
This aspect is still very important. After all, once influence is weak, it will be difficult to reverse the current situation.
Li Guangyu said to Gan Qin: "You can arrange a time for the senior leaders of our nine schools to sit together and have a good talk about the development of our major universities. At least we cannot lag behind the ten public schools in the rankings. In addition, we will not be able to lag behind the ten public schools in terms of enrollment."
You have to plan well.”
In fact, the worst thing is that since John Major took office, the government has allocated very little education funding to Li Guangyu and his nine schools. These schools are all supported by Li Guangyu and his friends.
Nowadays, there are more and more colleges and universities. The amount of funding for education in Xiangjiang is relatively fixed. It increases by the same amount every year. There will be no additional funds. This time, four universities are here. When the time comes, they will receive even less government funds.
Gan Qin also knew about the difficulties in the development of the Ninth School in recent years. The reason for the low allocation was not that John Major was specifically targeting Li Guangyu, but because he was targeting the teaching system of the Ninth School.
What Jay didn't like, the British people didn't like either.
John Major and the government even vaguely told Li Guangyu that as long as the Nine Schools and Xiangjiang University implement the same teaching system, the government will not treat them differently. Unfortunately, Li Guangyu ignored it and still insisted on the current teaching system.