Hong Kong in Figures 2026 reports enrolment by level. Figures generally refer to the beginning of the school year, except post-secondary education, which is as at end-December. They cover full-time and part-time students on programmes of at least one year, and exclude tutorial, vocational and adult courses below post-secondary level.
In 2025/26: pre-primary 115,300; primary 321,700 (including special schools); secondary 361,400 (provisional, including evening, craft and Yi Jin / Diploma of Applied Education); post-secondary 354,700 (provisional). In 2025, 27.6% of people aged 15 and over held a degree.
The Education Bureau describes flexible, multiple-entry and multiple-exit routes. From 2018/19 the eight UGC-funded universities provide 15,000 first-year-first-degree places and 5,000 senior-year places a year. HKDSE holders may apply through JUPAS. UGC-funded universities and VTC also offer publicly funded sub-degree programmes; the self-financing sector runs alongside. The Qualifications Framework references academic, vocational and continuing-education awards.
The same occupation often has more than one lawful path — Administrative Officer and Executive Officer II have different degree hurdles; air traffic control can be entered from specified HKDSE subjects. Sourced occupation pages are in the careers index; missing jobs are not invented.
Official hard figures not yet recorded (all carry an explicit year): (1) UGC official average graduate salary by discipline across the eight funded universities; (2) JUPAS programme-by-programme applicant numbers, offers and median admission scores; (3) EDB class, teacher and pupil counts by school type and school net; (4) HKDSE subject grade distributions and pass rates year by year. Deliberately left blank: private tutorial-centre fees, unverified exam analysis and private university league tables are deliberately not cited.
Chinese and English are the official languages. Among people aged 5 and over, 88.2% usually speak Cantonese, 4.6% English, 2.3% Putonghua, 2.8% other Chinese dialects and 2.1% other languages.
There are eight UGC-funded universities plus self-financing and statutory institutions. This site’s directory lists 13 major institutions: eight UGC-funded universities, two self-financing universities and three statutory or publicly funded institutions.
The official counts are published by the Education Bureau each school year in its statistics index and the Student Enrolment Statistics report. This site’s school directory covers selected notable schools and is not a complete list.
Counting fully subsidised public schooling, 12 years: six primary plus six secondary. Kindergarten is separately subsidised under the Kindergarten Education Scheme, and free education was extended from the original nine years introduced in the late 1970s.
The HKDSE examinations run from about March to May, results are released in mid-July, and JUPAS results follow in August. Exact dates are published each year by the HKEAA and JUPAS.
The school year starts in September and the summer break normally runs from mid-July to the end of August. Exact dates come from the Education Bureau’s calendar guidelines and each school’s own calendar.
Hong Kong follows a “6+3+3+4” system: six years of primary school, three years of junior secondary, three years of senior secondary and four years for a first bachelor’s degree. Compulsory education covers nine years (Primary 1 to Secondary 3) with public-sector places provided by the Education Bureau. The HKDSE is the main public examination for university admission.
Hong Kong students most commonly choose the UK, Australia, Canada and the United States, followed by the mainland (through schemes admitting DSE holders), Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and EU countries. DSE scores are directly usable in UCAS (UK), UAC (Australia) and OUAC (Canada); IB and A-Level are globally recognised university-entry qualifications.
The ten leading causes of death, including cancer, are counted by the Department of Health from the principal cause confirmed at death registration and published annually. Cancer incidence cases, by contrast, are compiled by the Hong Kong Cancer Registry from the registry. The two bases, reference dates and methods differ and must not be subtracted or added together.
Average graduate salaries are published annually by the University Grants Committee (UGC), computed from the employment databases of the aided universities and broken down by discipline. The UGC also publishes annual figures for aided places by programme.
The DH Student Health Service publishes yearly figures on child obesity, while DH runs population health surveys on chronic-disease prevalence and the CHP issues communicable-disease notifications — all official health data with clear years and methods.
Hong Kong has eight aided universities plus a number of public and self-financing post-secondary institutions. Primary and secondary schools are classified as government, aided, DSS, private and international, with counts published by the EDB and related bodies for explicit years.
Hong Kong has multiple government funding and grant channels spanning research, education, innovation and investment promotion, each under a dedicated body with its own criteria. Specific quotas and amounts change with the budget; this site records the establishment of each programme, and current applications follow the latest fund announcements.
For the 2025/26 school year, Hong Kong had about 115,300 pre-primary, 321,700 primary, 361,400 secondary and 354,700 post-secondary students; about 27.6% of people aged 15+ hold a degree. Secondary and post-secondary numbers are close, reflecting widely accessible higher education.
Primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong are categorised as government, aided, Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS), private and international schools. Government and aided schools are fully government-funded; DSS schools receive government subsidies but may charge fees; private and international schools are self-financed.
HKDSE Category A subjects use a 7-level scale: 5**, 5*, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, with 5** being the highest. The minimum JUPAS entrance requirement is typically 332A33.
Sub-degree programmes in Hong Kong include Associate Degree and Higher Diploma, typically 2 years long. Associate Degree is broader and can articulate to Year 3 of a bachelor's degree; Higher Diploma is more specialised and vocationally oriented. Both can lead to bachelor's programmes via non-JUPAS admission.
As of the 2024/25 school year, Hong Kong has about 590 primary schools, 512 secondary schools and about 980 kindergartens. The number of schools adjusts with changes in school-age population.
About 58,487 candidates took the HKDSE in 2026. About 36.8% of school candidates achieved "332A33", meeting the minimum entrance requirement for local bachelor's programmes. UGC-funded first-year bachelor's degree places are about 15,000 per year.
UGC-funded universities offer about 15,000 first-year bachelor's degree places per year, and about 5,000 senior-year bachelor's degree places. Universities also offer self-financed bachelor's, research and taught postgraduate programmes.
相關年鑑年份 Yearbook years
延伸閱讀 Further reading
適合學術引用嘅參考文獻：官方出版物、政府報告、學術著作。每項附引用格式同研究價值說明。
官方出版物 Official
教育局。《專上教育》。取自 https://www.edb.gov.hk/
Education Bureau. Post-secondary Education. Retrieved from https://www.edb.gov.hk/
專上教育途徑嘅官方說明。
The official description of post-secondary pathways.
政府報告 Report
大學教育資助委員會。《UGC 年報》。取自 https://www.ugc.edu.hk/
University Grants Committee. UGC Annual Reports. Retrieved from https://www.ugc.edu.hk/
教資會資助制度嘅官方文件。
Official documents on the UGC-funded system.
學術著作 Scholarly
Bray, M. & Koo, R. (Eds.) (2004). Education and Society in Hong Kong and Macau. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre.
Bray, M. & Koo, R. (Eds.) (2004). Education and Society in Hong Kong and Macau. CERC.
