Every day, people in Hong Kong pay out roughly five million dollars in tuition fees to further their education and move up a rung on the knowledge-economy ladder. Since the 1970s, the number of adults enrolling in further education courses has doubled every decade, but over the last 10 years the momentum has been accelerating.

"Enrolment in Hong Kong, as a whole, has increased a lot, which is a result of a combination of factors," Professor Enoch Young, Director of the University of Hong Kong School of Professional and Continuing Education (HKU SPACE) explained.

The number of students enrolling at HKU SPACE shot up from 38,782 in 1990 to 106,672 for the academic year of 2001-02. Around 48 per cent of these students were studying for a postgraduate or bachelor's degree, with the remainder studying for non-degree programmes. This is compared to 68,546 students for the same academic year studying at universities under the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong (UGC), which funds about 90 per cent of all government funded university students in Hong Kong.

Since its establishment in 1956, HKU SPACE has expanded its scope to now offer mainly part-time courses for working adults. HKSAR Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's goal of having 60 per cent of the population in Hong Kong go onto higher education by 2010 prompted SPACE to take up the challenge by establishing HKU SPACE Community College, a non-profit company wholly owned by the university, in September 2000.

"We had been running programmes on a self-financing basis for many years, so within six months we were able to start the first community college in Hong Kong," Prof Young explained.

The number of students enrolling at the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) has also been soaring. In 2001, almost 27,000 students were enrolled at the university. In the past five years alone, the number of students graduating has doubled. Last year, a record 4,664 students graduated from OUHK, almost 1,000 more than in 2001, explained Professor Tam Sheung-wai, president, OUHK.

Adult education in Hong Kong has long been neglected. The government's policy that only one-third of secondary school leavers can go onto sixth form to study for their A-levels and then onto university has created huge demand for alternative routes to higher education.

But education in Hong Kong does is not cheap. The UGC puts the average cost per student at HK$230,000 per year, whereas HKU SPACE Community College charges around HK$40,000 per student. Prof Young said HKU SPACE is able to charge much lower fees only because it has huge resources that it has built up over the years.

At the Open University of Hong Kong, the majority of the student population is made up of working adults, with the average age being 33 years old. Because these students are not subsidised, the drop out rate is very low.

To raise tertiary education in Hong Kong to 60 per cent, more students will need to go onto sixth and seventh form to take their A-levels and then onto university. But this would put tremendous pressure on government resources to create more university places, which it can ill afford to do.

Now community colleges are offering form-five graduates the chance to earn an associate degree, which is the equivalent of the first year of a three-year degree. Associate degrees are quite new in Hong Kong, but it allows holders to go on to do a full degree.

"I think the whole associate degree is very new in Hong Kong but I think it has great potential in the sense that it will provide an alternative route for the students who can't get into sixth form," Prof Young said.

Community colleges are also helping meet the huge demand for continuing education of the working population.

Continuing education in Hong Kong was largely ignored by the government until the mid-1990s, when the release of a study showed that on average, 40 per cent of the working population in OECD countries take continuing education of some kind. In Hong Kong, the rate is about 20 per cent.

"In a knowledge economy continuing education can be just as important -- some times it is more important -- as mainstream education," Prof Young said. "That is why some universities have established continuing education courses."

Universities in Hong Kong are quite unique in that they rely completely on government funding to operate. Around the world, even in China, universities need to fund themselves. Hong Kong universities are only now beginning to look for alternative funding.

One obvious source is to export education. In the United Kingdom and Australia, the export of education is a policy, and has become big business.

Hong Kong universities are quite strong so attracting overseas students would not be difficult, says Prof Young.

"There is no reason why universities should not export education," Prof Tam said. "Like ourselves, we are still exploring new opportunities, getting more courses and expanding our market, especially into China."

But for this to work, government will have to relax some of its restrictions on students coming to study here.

Last year, several students from China wanted to come to Hong Kong to study on a self-financing basis. The university approved their application, but their visas were rejected. When the university enquired why, the answer was: because the students were not subsidised by the HKSAR Government.

Demand for further education in China in the last few years has grown dramatically. While the Mainland government is providing more funding for universities, very little has been done in the area of adult education. But things are changing very quickly.

In the last few years, Mainlanders not only want to get a better education, but they want an education outside of China. HKU SPACE and OUHK are among the schools in Hong Kong that provide such opportunities by offering courses throughout China.

Prof Tam says the OUHK currently has over 3,700 Mainland students enrolled in its courses on a self-financing basis. It has established 22 centres throughout the whole of China, from Xian in the north to Kunming in the south, and graduated 2,000 Mainland students in 1997.

"China has a big market for education. We are doing distance learning, which is the right mode of operation for developing countries," he said.