Number of non-DSE students in Hong Kong public universities surges 63 per cent, while local exam-takers fall to 72 per cent of intake
4-MIN READ4-MINWilliam YiuPublished: 8:30am, 24 Aug 2026Hong Kong public universities have admitted a record number of students applying outside the local exam system, with the intake surging by 63 per cent over seven years to account for nearly 30 per cent of the 15,000 government-funded places, the South China Morning Post has found.
Meanwhile, the intake of home-grown students taking the Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) exam has dropped by 7 per cent, causing its proportion to fall from 82 per cent to 72 per cent, sparking calls for a cap on admissions through alternative qualifications to safeguard local interests.
“The decrease in places for DSE students results in driving up admission scores,” said Ng Po-shing, a student guidance consultant at Hok Yau Club and vice-principal of a secondary school. “More students are complaining that they failed to get into certain programmes though they met the median score in the previous cohort.”
The Diploma of Secondary Education is the city’s main university entrance examination.
The SCMP isolated the trends after analysing data sets from the University Grants Committee (UGC) on first-year-first-degree students admitted with DSE and non-DSE qualifications across all eight government-funded universities from 2019-20 to 2025-26.
According to the data, non-DSE admissions to government-funded Year One university places have shown an upward trend in both overall numbers and proportions over six years.
