Dr SH Ko Acting Head of the Division of Commerce City University of Hong Kong

Still relatively new, the Associate degree program has just released its first batch of graduates. Although public awareness of the program's standard is still not as high as City University of Hong Kong's Dr SH Ko, Acting Head of the Division of Commerce would like to see it, he believes that the qualification provides an important element of choice and flexibility for students.

Associate degrees are taken full-time over two years, and are generally equivalent to the first year of a traditional first-degree program. General entry requirements are either a single A-Level pass or two AS-Level passes as opposed to the two A-Levels needed to gain entry to a Bachelor degree program.

"Associate degrees offer students a number of paths," Dr Ko comments. "Local universities recognize the standard and will generally allow entry to the second year of a first degree course. Students could alternatively join the job market with the benefit of a recognized qualification --- a situation not possible if they were to drop out before completing a Bachelor degree."

Maintaining standards

Students needn't worry that the content of associate degrees is a diluted or 'dumbed down' version of a first degree.

"To take an example, graduates of our Associate of Business Administration Accountancy degree are entitled to up to six exemptions from Association of Chartered Certified Accountants papers, compared to eight or nine for holders of most accountancy first degrees," says Dora Lee, Principal Lecturer of CityU's Division of Commerce. "Associate degree students who achieve a Grade Point Average of 3.0 or above (roughly equivalent to a B) can advance to various Bachelor's degree programs offered by the faculties of CityU, of which 400 second-year places have been reserved in 2002."

Students could also opt to switch to first-degree courses with overseas universities, and CityU has signed memoranda of understanding or arrangements with more than 30 such institutions to allow advanced entry to their Bachelor programs.

Dr Ko adds that their inherent flexibility and vocationally relevant content make Associate degrees a good option for part time learners.

"Through part time study, an Associate degree can be completed in as little as 27 months compared to between four and five years for a first degree," he says. "Part time Bachelor degrees tend to remain largely academic in content, which is something that students in full-time employment need to consider before making such a long commitment."

At CityU, self-financed part-time Associate of Business Administration programs differ slightly from the University Grants Committee funded full-time offering in that the first year of study focuses on general business topics followed by the option of specialization in either accountancy or marketing. This choice will be expanded soon to include financial services, e-commerce, HR management and possibly business law.

A bridge to higher education

The concept for Associate degrees was modeled on the US mode of study, where students take a four-year first-degree program. Hong Kong's tertiary education system is of course based on the British model, where students take a two-year A-Level course followed by a three-year degree.

This extra layer of choice for students offers an escape option for those who recognize the benefits of continued study, yet do not relish the prospect of repeating Form Seven after a poor examination showing.

"It's what we call the 2+2 versus the 1+3 choice," explains Dr Ko. "Suppose a student doesn't qualify for a university degree because he's only passed one A-Level - normally that means repeating the year. But if he feels ready to advance from the school environment, he can switch his sights to an Associate degree program instead. The overall time taken to earn the first degree is the same: two years Associate degree followed by entry to the second year of a Bachelor degree versus one year repeating A-Levels plus three years degree study."

Valuable in its own right

However, with further study places at a premium in Hong Kong, students needn't think that applying for an Associate degree is an easy option.

"More than 50 per cent of applicants could have qualified for a Bachelor degree program, having passed two A-Levels, and we even had one student who had passed three, but stumbled on the general language requirement," notes Dr Ko. "This year's A-Level results are good, so the standard of students entering Associate degree programs could be even higher."

Suggestions that there will be less interest in the Associate degree programs than in traditional Bachelor degrees have also proved unfounded. According to the Joint University Programmes Admissions System (JUPAS) application numbers (after reprioritization statistics from July), CityU's Division of Commerce Associate degree program had between 15 to 30 times more applications than number of places available. Dr Ko notes that since students get 25 course choices on the JUPAS scheme, only the top three choices are really meaningful, but even taking this into account, demand far outstrips supply.

Taken from Career Times 2002/09/06