University of Hong Kong medical school rejects claims local DSE students were turned away
- Just 49 per cent of the 235 students offered places in the medical programme this year were through JUPAS
- Dean of school says he has not gone back on his word
The head of Hong Kong’s oldest medical school has dismissed suggestions he had turned away more local students from the doctors’ training programme than he had promised.
Professor Gabriel Leung, dean of the University of Hong Kong’s faculty of medicine, stressed he had never broken his promise to reserve more space to admit students who aspire to be doctors and applied for the medical programme through the Joint University Programmes Admissions System (JUPAS).
In contrast, students who did not take DSE exams apply to local universities through the non- JUPAS scheme – they are usually from overseas or local international schools and generally considered to be from with wealthier backgrounds.
The suggestion of favouring non-JUPAS students was made in media reports as it emerged that just 49 per cent of the 235 students offered places in the medical programme this year were through JUPAS, far below the promise of 75 per cent, which Leung publicly pledged in 2013.
“I have not gone back on my words,” Leung stressed in an interview. He said the number of offers for the programme provided to JUPAS applicants every year was over 80 per cent of all students in the medical programme.
