11月1日，廣東省政府公布《關於印發廣東省教育發展「十四五」規劃的通知》（下簡稱《規劃》），不僅強調提升全省教育「綜合實力、整體競爭力、國際影響心力」達到國內先進水平，同時要促進粵港澳大灣區國際教育示範區建設的進展。
通知對港澳大專教育的發展具有重大而積極的意義，不僅為港澳大專院校在大灣區拓展校園提供黃金機會，並鼓勵與大灣區教育機構在項目合作、研究合作和創新發展等方面建立更密切的關係。
大學是人才與科技重要結合點
《規劃》的第一個重點是，從現在到2025年，廣東省12至15所高水平大學，要發展成為國內一流大學。 在這方面，大學被定位為人才和科技的「重要結合點」。《規劃》提出，加快推進高水平大學建設、建設世界一流大學和一流學科，從而使廣東的大學達到國內排名前列。
《規劃》旨在力爭至2022年新增1至2所省內高校入選國家「雙一流」（一流大學和一流學科）建設範圍。 這些高校有望牽頭建設1至2個國家級重大科研平台，產出一批高水平、原創性、具有高學術價值和重要社會影響、引領廣東乃至國家發展的科研成果。具體來說，《規劃》推動華南農業大學、南方醫科大學、廣東工業大學、廣州醫科大學、深圳大學、南方科技大學等大學進入國家「雙一流」建設高校範圍。
增加可頒授博碩士學位大學
《規劃》又提出，加快廣東省東部、西部和北部地區高等教育發展，力爭新增2至3所高校達到碩士學位授權單位建設要求。如此一來，這些高校將可服務和增強當地的經濟和社會發展能力，因此，省部級以上科研創新平台簽訂技術轉讓合同的數量和金額，應較2020年增長20%以上。此外，新增1至2所高校應能提供博士學位課程，若干學科排名應進入全國前列。
很明顯，廣東高等教育發展規劃雄心勃勃，力圖將省級高校提升到一流水平，同時縮小粵東、粵西和粵北地區高等教育發展的差距。實現地域上的平等，令省內欠發達地區有平等的高等教育發展機會。
《規劃》的第二個重點，是令廣東高等教育毛入學率（適齡上大學的18至22歲學生），由2021年的53.41%提高到60%，也就是說，要讓更多的適齡學生接受高等教育，從長遠來看，全省將擁有更多的高素質人才，而培養更多高素質人才，是廣東提升區域競爭力和國際地位的重要辦法。
支持粵省其他地區高等教育改革
具體來說，將興建深圳理工大學、深圳海洋大學、深圳創新創意設計學院、廣州交通大學等高校。建設一批與5G、人工智慧、網絡空間科學與技術、生命信息與生物醫藥、海洋經濟、智能經濟、大健康等主體產業發展密切相關的高水平國際化高校，打造集協同育人、科研、服務於一體的新型智慧中心。
此外，《規劃》還支持支持珠三角其他城市的高等教育改革發展，加快籌設大灣區大學、中山科技大學等大學，促進科教融合、產教融合，提升高等教育服務支撐現代化經濟體系建設能力，增強區域競爭力和國際影響力。
從區域上來看，汕頭將加快高等教育的發展。《規劃》支持汕頭、湛江兩個城市打造高校集群，推進汕頭大學、廣東海洋大學、廣東石油化工學院等高校，重點圍繞海洋科學、生物學、化學工程與技術、石油與天然氣工程、食品科學與工程、紡織科學與工程、生物醫藥等學科專業領域引進和培育高層次人才，服務沿海經濟帶地區承接重大產業。
在粵北地區，發展韶關學院，培養基礎教育、旅遊文化、醫療衛生、生態產業等領域的人才。
吸引更多港澳學府到廣東辦學
《規劃》的第三個重點，是推動更多港澳知名學府到廣東辦學。目標是到2025年，新建3至5所粵港澳合作辦學機構，新設3至5所不具法人性質的合作辦學機構和聯合研究院。這意味着將有更多香港和澳門高等院校將在廣東省內設點。
同時，廣東將大力推進香港科技大學（廣州）建設，加快推動香港城市大學、香港都會大學、香港理工大學、香港大學、澳門科技大學、澳門城市大學等港澳高校在粵辦學。
此外，將帶動各類「一帶一路」教育、科技、人文聯盟特色發展，聚焦世界科技前沿和國內薄弱、空白、緊缺學科專業，吸引世界知名高校和特色學院在粵合作辦學。
廣東也將支持深圳職業技術學院等與港澳合作共建「粵港澳大灣區特色職業教育園區」，並擴大廣東高校招收港澳台僑學生規模，廣東高校將歡迎和招收香港副學位畢業生升讀本科，並鼓勵港澳優秀學生到粵港澳大灣區的內地高校進行短期訪學。
《規劃》的第四個重點，是建設若干所本科層次職業學校，包括提供製造業急需的高素質技能人才。到2025年中職學校數量350所，在校學生達到12萬人。在這種情況下，將建立高質量的職業訓練學校，包括100所骨幹企業與應用型本科高校。
《規劃》對香港和澳門高等院校的影響是顯而易見的。廣東省政府歡迎和鼓勵港澳大專院校進入大灣區，在大灣區設立校區，建立聯合項目，共同開展合作研究。目的是創造雙贏局面，即提高廣東省內大學在教學、課程開發和創新研究方面水平的同時，港澳的大學也可以充分利用廣東龐大的學生人口來擴充規模，同時把研究水平提高，將有利所有持份者。
總的來說，《廣東省教育發展「十四五」規劃》是一項旨在提高省內高等教育競爭力、提升國際地位、提升省內人才素質、加強知識基礎和科研產出、建設部分省內高校成為一流大學的高等教育發展規劃。《規劃》充分利用港澳兩地的研究優勢，實現長遠雙贏。
在這個情況下，港澳各大學和大專院校必須探索一切機會在大灣區設立校區，在粵港澳大灣區開展合作項目，加強教學和科研合作及學術交流。粵港澳高等教育融合正在進行中，並將成為大灣區社會經濟和教育融合最重要的標誌。
Guangdong’s Higher Education Reform: Implications for Hong Kong and Macau
On November 1, the Guangdong provincial government issued a notice on the educational development of the province in accordance with the 14thfive-year plan, emphasizing not only the importance of enhancing the “comprehensive capability, overall competitiveness and international impacts” of the provincial education, but also the promotion of the demonstration effects of the international education district in the Greater Bay Area (GBA). This notice has significant and positive implications for the development of the higher education of both Hong Kong and Macau, where tertiary institutions are encouraged and given the golden opportunities to expand their campuses into the GBA and to forge closer cooperation with the GBA educational institutions in program collaboration, research cooperation and innovative development.
The first focus of the notice is that, from now to 2025, about 12 to 15 universities in Guangdong province should be developed into the first-tiered universities in China. In this aspect, universities are positioned as the “important integrative point” for the nurturing of talents and technology. The development plan of Guangdong’s higher education states that its objectives are to strive for excellence in higher education, to build up first-class universities in the world, and to establish first-class academic programs so that Guangdong’s universities will be able to enter the top-ranking universities in the entire nation (sina.com, November 1, 2021).
The Guangdong higher education development plan aims at striving for one or two more provincial universities to be ranked as “double first” (first-class university and first-class academic program) in the entire country. These universities are expected to be the leaders in producing high-level scientific outputs with originality and social impacts, leading the Guangdong province and the entire nation in scientific research and outputs. Specifically, the plan is to promote six universities into first-class ones: the South China Agricultural University, the Southern Medical University, the Guangdong University of Technology, the Guangzhou Medical University, the Shenzhen University, and the Southern University of Science and Technology.
The plan states that higher education development in the eastern, western and northern parts of the Guangdong province will have to be accelerated with the aim of establishing 2 to 3 higher education institutions with master programs to be offered and built up. In this way, these higher education institutions will serve and enhance the economic and social developmental capability of the localities concerned. Accordingly, over 20 percent of the contracts on technology transfer should be built from 2020 onwards. Moreover, one to two newly established higher education institutions should be able to offer doctoral programs and some of their academic programs should reach the level of first-class in China.
Obviously, the Guangdong higher education development plan is very ambitious, trying to raise the standard of provincial universities to the first-class ranking while closing the gap in the development of higher education institutions from eastern to western and northern regions so that a kind of parity will be reached geographically and that an equality of opportunity in higher education development will be achieved in the less developed regions within the province.
The second focus of the Guangdong development plan is to build up a batch of top universities with a gross student enrolment level (those students who reached the age of entering the universities to study, ranging from 18 to 22 years old) increasing from 53.41 percent to 60 percent in 2021. In other words, more students who reach the level of entering universities should be enrolled in higher education so that the entire province will have more higher quality talents in the long run. The cultivation of more quality talents is a means by which Guangdong expects to increase its regional competitiveness and international stature.
Specifically, new higher education institutions will be built up, like the Shenzhen Polytechnic University, the Shenzhen Ocean University, the Shenzhen Institute of Design and Innovation, and the Jiaotong University in Guangzhou, so that new programs in the areas of 5G, artificial intelligence, Internet and space technology, biomedical informatics, ocean economy, smart economy, big data and public health will be developed in breadth and depth.
Moreover, the plan is to support the higher education institutions in the Pearl River Delta and other cities to build up their universities, such as the Greater Bay Area University, the Zhongshan University of Technology so that science and teaching will be integrated on the one hand and production and education will be merged on the other, thereby elevating the construction ability of higher education in servicing and supporting the modernized economic sectors, and increasing Guangdong’s regional competitiveness and its international impacts.
Regionally speaking, Shantou is expected to accelerate its development in higher education. Shantou and Zhanjiang are expected to develop higher education groups with unique specializations, such as the Shantou University, the Guangdong Ocean University, the Guangdong Institute of Petrochemical Technology, so that ocean science, biology, food science, chemical engineering and technology, petrochemical and natural gas engineering, textile science and engineering, and biomedical science will be introduced and developed further. In this way, these higher education institutions will bring about coastal economic development and industrial sectors.
In the northern part of Guangdong, Shaoguan University will be developed to nurture talents in basic education, tourism and culture, medical health and ecological development.
The third focus is to encourage and promote more higher education institutions to develop partnership with Hong Kong and Macau’s famous higher education institutions. The target of the plan is to develop 3 to 5 education institutions that belong to the cooperative ventures between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau, and 3 to 5 cooperative research institutes between the three places. The implication is that more higher education institutions from Hong Kong and Macau will establish their programs in the Guangdong province.
At the same time, Guangdong province is going to speed up its cooperation with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), the Hong Kong Metropolitan University, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the University of Hong Kong, the Macau University of Science and Technology, and the Macau City University.
Furthermore, the education development along the Belt and Road initiatives will be strengthened by establishing various educational alliances in technology and humanities to attract more overseas universities and institutes to cooperate with the higher education institutions in Guangdong.
The Guangdong province also supports the Shenzhen Polytechnic to set up a district on the special vocational education in the GBA. Guangdong’s higher education institutions will welcome and recruit Hong Kong’s graduates in associate degree programs to pursue further studies in the province. It will encourage quality graduate students from Hong Kong and Macau to participate in short-term visits to the GBA higher education institutions.
The fourth focus of the Guangdong higher education development plan is to establish vocational schools and institutes for the province, including the area of the construction industry that lacks high quality technical experts. The target is to increase the number of vocational institutions to 350 in 2025 with a student population of 120,000. Under these circumstances, quality vocational schools will be established, including 100 schools that will focus on applied skills and knowledge.
The implications for higher education institutions from Hong Kong and Macau are obvious. The Guangdong provincial government embraces and encourages tertiary institutions from Hong Kong and Macau to enter the GBA, to set up campuses there, to build up joint programs, and to initiate collaborative research together. The objective is to create a win-win situation in which Guangdong’s local universities will elevate their standards in teaching, program development and innovative research while Hong Kong and Macau universities will be able to fully utilize the vast student population in Guangdong to expand themselves and to raise the research level to the benefits of all stakeholders concerned.
In conclusion, the Guangdong province’s higher education development plan is an ambitious one aiming at increasing the provincial competitiveness, elevating its international status, upgrading the quality of its provincial talents, enhancing the knowledge base and scientific research outputs, building up some provincial universities as the first-class higher education institutions in China, and making full use of the research strengths of Hong Kong and Macau to achieve a win-win situation in the long run. Under these circumstances, all the universities and tertiary institutions from Hong Kong and Macau must explore all the available opportunities to set up their campuses in the Greater Bay Area, to build up collaborative programs there, and to forge closer cooperation in research and student as well as academic exchanges. Integration in higher education institutions between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau is underway and it will be the most important indicator of socio-economic and educational integration in the Greater Bay Area.
原刊於澳門新聞通訊社（MNA）網站，本社獲作者授權轉載。
