Borderless Education and Teaching and Learning Cultures: The Case of Hong Kong

In the context of the need for Australian universities to retain their place in an increasingly competitive global environment, this paper examines the issues surrounding the quality of education offered to overseas students from the perspective of their educational goals and expectations of effective teaching and learning environments. It is argued that courses designed for Australian students, even though they are of demonstrably high quality, will not necessarily be viewed in this way by these students. Research on teaching and learning in the context of Hong Kong is used as the basis for an exploration of how on-campus teachers and learners view their educational experience. Contrary to Western stereotypes of Asian learners as rote learners and teachers as harsh authoritarian figures, the research points to learners as using memory as one step in the process of understanding rather than as an end in itself. Teachers reveal themselves as highly student-centred, as helping and guiding their students, while carefully orchestrating the learning experience of all students. It is argued that these qualities extend to provision of distance education in Hong Kong and to online teaching as well, though for practical social reasons the latter is likely to find greater acceptance in on-campus education than in the Open University which caters mainly for adult students.