HKUST graduates second most employable in Asia

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology(HKUST) has made a mark for itself when it comes to the employability of graduates.

The Global Employability University Survey ranked HKUST as the second most employable school in Asia - right after University of Tokyo.

Globally, University of Tokyo came in at 12th place, while HKUST came in at 14th, followed by Peking University (16th) and National University of Singapore NUS (17th).

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and University of Hong Kong (HKU) were ranked 60 and 83 respectively.The ranking was created from the combined votes of 2,200 recruiters and 2,400 managing directors of international companies or subsidiaries across 20 countries.

World famous institutes like Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford continued to top the ranking, taking the top, second and third spot respectively.

ALSO READ: Peking University bumps HKU out of Asia’s top three universities

NUS was the highest-ranked Asian institution, at 13th place, while HKUST came in at three places behind (16th).

Overall, Asia has shown progress in engineering and technology subjects, claiming 26 spots among the world top 100, up from 19 last year in the Times Higher Education ranking for engineering and technology subjects.

Yu Tong Xi, HKUST's acting dean of engineering, cited Hong Kong’s switch in 2012 to four-year undergraduate degrees has helped the university to climb up in the ranking.

"The four- year curriculum allowed the creation of a curriculum that is student-centric, broad-based, interdisciplinary and holistic in nature," he stated.

NUS was also Asia's top university for the ranking for social sciences subjects while sitting on the 28th spot globally.Local universities, however, saw a significant downfall when it came to social science subjects.

HKU, which was the top in Asia last year, dropped 10 places to 39th place globally, while HKUST fell from 35th to 72nd.CUHK, which came in at 66th place last year was left off the top 100 list.

Professor Ng Shun Wing head of department of education policy and leadership at the Hong Kong Institute of Education pointed out that research funding had been allocated to medical engineering and business researches which led to decline in social science subjects.

"The research fund for social science accounts for only 0.8% of the GDP, way lower than the 2% in Singapore and the 3% in Taiwan, researchers need more support," he told Oriental Daily.

ALSO READ: HKUST beats HKU to become Hong Kong’s top university

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