Three thousand non-local graduates choose to stay in Hong Kong over past three years
Education authority released that around 3,200 non-local graduates were recorded to have remained in Hong Kong after their academic stay, maintaining a three-year-period drop since 2019.
Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin said today in the Legislative Council that the government has set up various types of scholarships to attract non-local students to stay and flourish in Hong Kong.
According to the government, non-local students can be granted a work visa, the Immigration Arrangement for Non-local Graduates (IANG), if holding a local degree of bachelor's or higher and secure an employment offer after graduation.
On the other hand, the number of IANG holders continuously declined from 4,992 in 2019, to 3,216 in 2021.
In the Policy Address issued in October, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu announced that the government will relax the IANG by extending the limit of stay from one year to two years to cope with the decrease in local labor, which shrank by about 140,000 people over the past two years.