The empowering potential of higher education for underprivileged ethnic minorities’ sustainable development in Hong Kong: Educational policies for access and equity

Ethnic minority (EM) students, who speak a language other than Chinese (Cantonese) at home, have become one fast-growing subgroup of the entire twelve-year public school population in Hong Kong. Given their rapid growth at compulsory education stage, we would expect that this population is a rapidly growing presence in higher education as well. Yet official statistics reveal that EM students remain the least represented in local higher education institutions. This study critically evaluates the effectiveness of government support policies and practices for boosting the capacity of marginalised members of EM community to access university. Bourdieusian concepts of capital are employed to explore historically noteworthy progressive steps towards access and equity juxtaposed with recent indicators of policy development. The results of analysis suggest that the current policy measures are narrowly concentrated on remediating EMs’ limited Chinese proficiency, thus calling for a holistic policy framework that could mobilise the under-represented EM youths and enable their sustainable development in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2022 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.