English-medium by Design — HKUST's EMI Language Policy and the Reality of Parallel Language Use

In one sentence: From its founding in 1991, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) adopted English as its sole official language of instruction and assessment — a position codified by the Senate as "unless otherwise approved by the Senate for a specific course or program of study, English is the medium of instruction and assessment" — making it one of the most thoroughgoing English-medium instruction (EMI) regimes among Hong Kong's eight UGC-funded universities.

# What do the HKUST EMI rules actually say?

The Academic Registry's official documentation states unequivocally^※: "Unless otherwise approved by the Senate for a specific course or program of study, English is the medium of instruction and assessment at the University." The "Classes & Attendance" page further clarifies^※: "English is the formal medium of instruction for lectures, tutorials and laboratory sessions." These two clauses form the constitutional basis of HKUST's EMI policy, covering every taught programme at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, and serve as the evidentiary foundation for graduates applying for a "Proof of English Medium Instruction" certificate.

HKUST's EMI policy is not merely inherited colonial-era practice — it was a deliberate positioning choice made at the university's inception. Opened in 1991^※, HKUST was the first research university in Hong Kong's history built entirely from scratch, with no predecessor institution. Everything — from physical infrastructure to faculty recruitment — was benchmarked against international academic standards, and English was the only practically viable language of instruction. This stands in sharp contrast to The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), whose bilingual Chinese-English model operates on fundamentally different institutional assumptions. Of the eight UGC-funded institutions, roughly six use English as the dominant medium of instruction while two maintain hybrid-language models^※; HKUST sits unambiguously in the former camp.

# Which courses are exempt and can be taught in Mandarin or Cantonese?

The Senate-approved exemption mechanism functions as the pressure-release valve of HKUST's EMI system. With Senate authorisation, courses related to Chinese language study — and specifically approved by the School of Humanities and Social Science (SHSS) — may be exempted from the English-medium requirement^※. Approved courses are tagged in the course catalogue with [PU] (Putonghua, i.e. Mandarin) or [CA] (Cantonese); courses taught in English but requiring Chinese-language reading materials carry a [C] annotation.

For the 2025–26 academic year, the undergraduate LANG courses delivered in Chinese are as follows:

Source: HKUST Course Catalogue, LANG section, 2025–26^※.

Notably, Cantonese ([CA]) courses make up a very limited share and are concentrated entirely within the SHSS humanities and social science framework. Across science, engineering, business, and even the Academy of Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS), no course may in principle be taught in Chinese. Individual consultations or advising sessions may take place in any language^※, but these represent informal interactions rather than a policy-sanctioned exemption to the medium-of-instruction rule.

# How does English proficiency become a "hidden threshold" for admission and graduation?

At the admissions stage, HKUST's EMI regime requires all non-exempt applicants to submit English-language proficiency certification. Under the official entry requirements, international applicants must provide an IELTS Academic minimum overall score of 6.0, or a TOEFL iBT score of at least 80 (for tests taken before January 2026)^※; native English speakers from designated countries, and those who have completed a degree at a wholly English-medium institution, are eligible for exemption. For local students taking the HKDSE (Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education), the English Language subject result serves as the screening metric.

During their degree, HKUST operates a layered English-development system through the Center for Language Education (CLE). LANG 1002 "English for University Studies I" is a compulsory common-core course for all undergraduates^※, designed to equip students with the core English-language competencies needed to function effectively in an EMI higher-education setting; students are streamed into different tracks based on their entry English scores. From the 2024–25 academic year, a new two-pathway structure was introduced: Pathway 1 caters to students who meet the basic English admission standard, while Pathway 2 is for those whose English proficiency exceeds the baseline requirement^※.

From Year 2, students must take discipline-specific English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) courses, streamed by school:

Source: CLE programme requirements page^※. This two-tier structure — general academic English followed by discipline-specific English — threads English-language development across the full four years rather than treating it as a one-off entry hurdle. It signals that HKUST regards EMI as an ongoing academic standard, not merely a policy declaration.

# How has the international enrolment drive reshaped HKUST's linguistic ecology?

The practical consequences of the language policy have been amplified dramatically over the past decade by shifts in the campus demographic profile. According to the December 2025 statistics, HKUST's total enrolled student population stood at 20,475, of whom 9,860 were non-local students (8,216 from mainland China / Taiwan / Macau, 1,271 Asian international students, and 373 non-Asian international students)^※. Non-local students thus accounted for approximately 48% of the total student body.

Source: HKUST Facts & Figures, December 2025 snapshot^※.

This structural pattern is closely tied to government policy adjustments. In his 2023 Policy Address, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu announced that the cap on non-local undergraduate enrolments at UGC-funded institutions would be doubled from 20% to 40%^※, effective from the 2024/25 academic year. The September 2025 Policy Address raised the cap further to 50%, taking effect from 2026–27^※. HKUST has energetically leaned into this trajectory: non-local undergraduate applications for the 2025/26 cycle surged by roughly 40% year-on-year, with applicants hailing from over 85 countries and regions; HKUST also posts the highest proportion of non-mainland international students among UGC-funded institutions^※.

# With the mainland-Chinese student share soaring, is English actually the lingua franca?

A marked gap separates the policy-level commitment to all-English instruction from the linguistic reality on the ground — a phenomenon amply documented in the research literature. It is not unique to HKUST, but it is especially pronounced on a campus with such a high concentration of mainland-Chinese students.

Academic research has shown that in Hong Kong EMI classrooms, local students routinely use Cantonese for informal interactions during class (such as small-group discussions and questions to the lecturer), while mainland-Chinese students interact mainly in Mandarin^※. English may be the formal medium at the lectern, but it is not the common currency of student-to-student communication, inside or outside the classroom. An in-depth Times Higher Education report, drawing on the observations of international students, noted that "linguistic clustering" creates an invisible barrier for Western students organising study groups or social activities outside the classroom — students overwhelmingly gravitate towards those who share their first language^※.

Across the whole UGC sector, in the 2024–25 academic year, mainland-Chinese international students accounted for approximately 92% of all international research postgraduate enrolments at HKUST^※. At undergraduate level, students from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau together accounted for roughly 83% of the non-local cohort (8,216 out of 9,860). The upshot is that even though English is the official language of instruction, Mandarin has, in substantive terms, become the campus's most widely used everyday language after English.

# Where does HKUST sit within the "biliteracy and trilingualism" framework?

Since the 1997 handover, the Hong Kong government has pursued a "biliteracy and trilingualism" (兩文三語) language policy — mastery of written Chinese and English, and spoken competence in Cantonese, English, and Mandarin. HKUST's EMI positioning generates a distinctive tension within this overarching framework.

On the one hand, the University's all-English instruction aligns neatly with the government's stated aim of leveraging English to sharpen the higher-education sector's international competitiveness. UGC reports have long supported funded institutions in maintaining high proportions of EMI delivery, precisely to safeguard the competitiveness of graduates in the global labour market. On the other hand, neither Cantonese nor Mandarin constitutes a significant learning resource outside the SHSS umbrella. Chinese-language courses — including the Mandarin-proficiency series LANG 1511–1515 for non-Chinese-background students and the workplace, digital, and cultural Chinese-writing courses for native speakers — remain confined to the SHSS humanities and social science framework^※ and are virtually absent from the science, engineering, and business curricula.

A live debate concerns whether HKUST's EMI stance systematically erodes local students' ability to handle academic writing in Cantonese-Chinese. Critics argue that when virtually all academic training takes place in English, students — local students especially — are left with only limited scope to develop advanced Chinese writing and academic expression, producing a structural shortfall against the "biliteracy and trilingualism" ideal. Defenders counter that in a world where global science and business are overwhelmingly English-medium, maintaining a strict EMI standard at a top-tier research university is both a practical necessity and a competitive obligation; Chinese-language proficiency, they argue, should properly be cultivated through other channels.

# How does HKUST make Chinese-language resources available to non-Chinese speakers?

As the international-student share expands rapidly, demand from non-Chinese-background students for Chinese-language learning is receiving growing attention. The Center for Language Education has built a structured pathway: the five-level LANG 1511–1515 Mandarin series spans absolute-beginner to HSK Level 4 and above, with progression keyed to cumulative study hours (50/150/300/500 hours)^※. Alongside these sit Conversational Cantonese courses (LANG 1130 for non-Chinese-background students; LANG 1133 for Chinese-background students) and elective third-language offerings in Japanese, French, and Spanish.

This architecture reflects a pragmatic, multi-directional response to linguistic diversity sitting outside the main EMI framework. For local students, Mandarin serves as a supplement to their "national common language" repertoire; for mainland-Chinese students, Cantonese is the social key to embedding themselves in the Hong Kong community; for international students, Chinese-language study is a career-enhancing asset for the Asia-Pacific region. The three constituencies have quite different needs, and HKUST's Chinese-language course menu provides entry points for all of them — but none of these are compulsory for science, engineering, or business students, and none can be mistaken for a "bilingual" arrangement that sits with any parity alongside English-medium instruction.

# Key figures at a glance