PolyU makes bold offer to pay for set-up cost of Hong Kong’s new medical school
Council chairman Lam Tai-fai says the institution can cover costs if needed, until the school moves into the Ngai Tam Mei campus
Hong Kong Polytechnic University has made a bold offer to cover the full cost of the city’s third medical school without needing the government to “pay a cent” before it opens in the Northern Metropolis, one of the institution’s leaders has revealed.
PolyU on Wednesday revealed details of its plan to build Hong Kong’s third medical school for the first time, after it and other candidates submitted their proposals to the government two days ago.
The university said artificial intelligence (AI) was an important element of its proposed curriculum, as it released the names of the 21 members of its advisory committee including mainland China’s top infectious disease experts, professors Zhong Nanshan and Zhang Wenhong.
“PolyU can promise the government that, if there is any need, PolyU can cover all financial expenses [of the medical school] before it moves into the Ngau Tam Mei campus,” said Lam Tai-fai said, chairman of the university’s governing body.
‘That means the current and even the next government will not need to pay a cent.”
Lam said the university had submitted a proposal to the government as early as 2023 to set up a medical school in the Northern Metropolis, a megadevelopment covering a university town and a future innovation hub near the border with the mainland.