Ka-Ho Mok
Biographic Data
| ID | 280099 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ka-Ho Mok |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ka-Ho |
| FAMILY NAME | Mok |
| SIGNATURE | MOK K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Education University of Hong Kong |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0846-1867 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 110 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 635 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 108 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Contributions of tertiary students’ background factors, learning strategies, behavioural engagement, and cognitive skills to problem solving in technology-rich environments
The current study investigated the contributions of background factors (i.e., gender, age, and parents’ education), learning strategies, behavioural engagement in different domains (i.e., reading, writing, numeracy, and ICT), and cognitive skills (i.e., literacy and numeracy) to problem solving in technology-rich environments among tertiary students across 24 countries. The sample for this study comprised 12,148 tertiary students ( M age = 25.68 …
Southeast Asia’s cross-regional research collaborations in the multiplex world
China’s approach to inward student mobility since 1949
Before the outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019, China had emerged as a major destination for inward student mobility (ISM), hosting 529,000 students across various programmes. Existing research often explains popular study destinations via neo-liberal policies that treat education as an export. Yet the Chinese context reveals a more complex interplay between market forces and state intervention, pointing to a distinctive “China model.” This paper d…
Managing the rise of older adults in East Asia
The impact of geopolitics on international student mobility
In the last few years, international student mobility has been disrupted not only by the global health crisis resulting from the outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic but also adversely affected by the rise of geopolitics. The worsening relationship between China and its western counterparts led by the United States and its allies has significantly influenced students' motivation and plan for overseas education. Based upon interviews with 75 students…
The Covid-19 pandemic and post-graduation outcomes
Interview
Mapping the historical development and landscape of research about transnational higher education
Contracting Out Social Services in China’s Three First-Tier Cities
In the last two decades, the Chinese government has made serious attempts to enhance social provision by contracting out social services. Empirical evidence suggests that openness and flexibility of resource allocation gradually decrease from Guangzhou in southern China to Beijing in northern China, amongst China’s three first-tier cities. This study further reveals that state–non-governmental organisation (NGO) relations vary not only across geo…
Remaking international higher education for an unequal world
Prior to the current global health crisis, the value, and benefits of international education for different social groups have been questioned. Critics of the internationalisation of education emphasise that international student mobility only favours the elites in society but has disadvantaged for those groups with less fortunate socioeconomic status. In view of the COVID‐19 pandemic, leading scholars in the field of international higher educati…
Reimagining Higher Education in the Post-Covid-19 Era
Impact of Covid-19 on Higher Education
Changes in older adults' perceptions of age-friendliness in Hong Kong
Productive engagement and ageing in productivist welfare regimes
The population aged 65 years and above in Hong Kong is projected to rise from 15 per cent in 2014 to 38.4 per cent in 2069. Therefore, the quest for creating age-friendly conditions and the promotion of active ageing has become a priority for the Hong Kong Government and stakeholders in the city. Using a cross-national comparative framework for productive engagement in later life, this article examines the predictors of productive engagement (per…
Welfare contracting with Chinese socialist characteristics
This study is set out against the broader socio‐political economy context, in which China searches for better social governance to improve service delivery catering to the soaring demand on social care in the Bohai Bay Economic Rim (BBER). BBER is one of China's industrial bases and currently an emerging economic powerhouse in Northern China, rivalling the Pearl River Delta in the south and Yangtze River Delta in the east. On the bases of policy …
The Broken Promise of Human Capital Theory
Human capital theory has been one of the most influential theories in national policymaking since the 1980s. The major assertion is that individuals can attain better employment outcomes through investing in degrees and credentials. Following the economic reforms of the late 1970s, Chinese families have reverted to the tradition of investing in the education of their children, hoping that the human capital accumulated through higher education wil…
Social Quarantine and Its Four Modes
Building on the studies of health quarantine from a social perspective, this article explores the complex contexts of social quarantine as a mode of public health, a mode of community action and a behavioural and psychological mode of social distancing. To establish a conceptual investigation of the “social quarantine” issue, this study investigates four approaches to quarantine: public health, social administration, behavioural norms, and psycho…
Migrating to GBA cities in mainland China
South–North and North–North migration patterns have received significant interest in the literature, and recently, studies have begun to investigate South–South migration. However, as yet, very few studies have addressed North–South migration or investigated the psychological facilitators and barriers that drive this growing migration pattern. With a sample from a representative group of Hong Kong adults, we evaluated the role of positive attitud…
Assessing the connection between overeducation and migration intention in Hong Kong’s young working adults
This study addresses the link between overeducation and intention to migrate to the Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities in mainland China in a sample of Hong Kong’s young adults employed in lower occupational classes (elementary occupations, plant and machine operators and assemblers, craft and related workers, and service and sales workers). The results indicate that overeducation has a unique negative effect on attitudes towards migration to GBA. The…
Covid-19 crisis and challenges for graduate employment in Taiwan, Mainland China and East Asia
Graduate employment and unemployment or underemployment are becoming increasingly important issues confronting not only global higher education research but also social and political debates in contemporary societies. In addition to the rapid social and economic changes resulting from the exponential technologies, the outbreak of the COVID-19pandemic has further intensified unemployment resulted from the serious global economic downturn. As the l…
Remaking higher education for the post‐Covid‐19 era
This Special Issue was conceived and developed following a series of international conferences held in Asia, with a particular focus on critically reflecting upon higher education development in the region from broader social and political economy perspectives. Some of the papers in this Special Issue were selected from presentations in the East Asia Social Policy (EASP) Research Network Conference successfully held in Taiwan in 2018, while other…
Education market with the Chinese characteristics
In the last few decades, the Chinese higher education system has changed considerably from an elitist model to a massified one with public and minban /transnational provisions. Accordingly, this study sets out against the context of higher education expansion initiated in late 1998 to critically examine the major trends of non‐state (including minban and transnational) higher education developments. More specifically, it discusses how minban high…
Impact of Covid-19 pandemic on international higher education and student mobility
Managing neo-liberalism with Chinese characteristics
Massification, diversification and internationalisation of higher education in China
Transforming Higher Education in Whose Image? Exploring the Concept of the ‘World-Class’ University in Europe and Asia
Marketizing higher education in post-Mao China
Massification of higher education and challenges for graduate employment and social mobility
Global aspirations and strategising for world-class status
In the era of globalisation, competition has also become global. In higher education, countries worldwide are attaching increasing importance to international ranking exercises and subscribing to the 'world-class universities' paradigm, complemented by various strategies to benchmark with leading universities in order to enhance the global competitiveness of their universities. This is particularly so in Asia as it emerges as the centre of fast-g…
When marketisation and privatisation clash with socialist ideals
Massification of higher education, graduate employment and social mobility in the Greater China region
Globalisation and the evolution of the knowledge-based economy have caused dramatic worldwide changes in the character and functions of education, particularly higher education. In the search for global competitiveness, many emerging economies have begun to expand their higher education systems, which has significantly affected the relationship between higher education and graduate employment. Recently, international comparative studies have sugg…
Managing Social Change and Social Policy in Greater China
Discussion of welfare regimes and welfare state ideal types continues to dominate comparative social policy analysis, but the focus of the debate has expanded considerably since the publication of Esping-Andersen's (1990) groundbreaking The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism . Shifts in this debate have been prompted by a mixture of theoretical and empirical concerns raised by comparative social policy scholars, but they have also resulted from a…
Dual decentralization in China's transitional economy
In the last three decades, China has experienced dual decentralization in transforming its economy, resulting in decentralization and deconcentration in public administration and social service delivery. Under the policy framework of decentralization, particularly when welfare financing has been decentralized to local governments, the emergence of welfare regionalism is evident in China. This paper sets out against this policy context to examine …
Educational Reforms and Coping Strategies under the Tidal Wave of Marketisation
It has been a global trend, since the 1980s, that the process of marketisation has been influential in the decision making of social policies around the world, and that this tidal wave is now crossing over to the Asia–Pacific region as well. Education policy, as one of the important social policies for many developing countries, has been influential in the forefront of national development in terms of manpower training, as well as in other arenas…
The Cost of Managerialism
Universities and other institutions of higher learning now encounter far more challenge, and are subjected to an unprecedented level of external scrutiny. All providers of higher education today inhabit a more competitive world where resources are becoming scarcer, but at the same time they have to accommodate increasing demands from the local community as well as changing expectations from parents and employers. In order to be more responsive to…
Riding over socialism and global capitalism
In coping with the challenges of globalization, various reform measures, in the field of social policy, have been initiated in post‐Mao China. Strategies such as privatization, marketization, commodification and societalization have been adopted to redefine the relationship between the state, the market and other non‐state sectors involved in social policy provision and financing. In particular, the restructuring of state‐owned enterprises and th…
Privatization Or Marketization
A new welfare regime in the making? Paternalistic welfare pragmatism in China
Since 2003, the Chinese government has been increasing its social expenditure and initiated new social welfare programmes to provide universal social protection and meet citizens’ welfare needs. This article uses the wider socio-economic and socio-political contexts to critically examine whether there is a new welfare regime on the rise in China, with a particular reference to whether the increase in social expenditure has really marked a new wel…
From 'brain drain' to 'brain bridging
In the past few decades, the internationalisation of higher education has become an increasingly popular trend across different parts of the globe. The fierce global competition and the aggravating unemployment rate, coupled with low teaching and research quality revealed by universities in mainland China, have inevitably compelled a growing number of Chinese students, in particular the financially-able ones, to pursue higher education overseas o…
Pension privatisation in Greater China
Shi S‐J, Mok K‐H. Pension privatisation in Greater China: institutional patterns and policy outcomes This article examines rationales and processes for pension privatisation in Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China since the 1990s. It argues that the configurations of the public/private pension mix in the three cases are related to their respective political‐economic development. To achieve the reform of state‐owned enterprises and labour markets,…
Academic capitalisation in the new millennium
English Universities and other institutions of higher learning now encounter far more challenges and are subjected to an unprecedented level of external scrutiny. All providers of higher education today inhibit a more competitive world where resources are becoming scarcer, but at the same time they have to accommodate increasing demands from the local community as well as changing expectations from parents and employers. In such a policy context,…
Managing the Covid-19 pandemic crisis and changing welfare regimes
This article aims at setting out a broader context for the debates and discussions on welfare transformations driven by rapid global challenges and restructuring. Confronted with challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, governments and societies across the globe must rethink and reimagine their social welfare approaches to make them appropriate and effective to manage the risks and crises. The papers in this special issue address three ma…
Varieties of regulatory regimes in Asia
Under intensified pressures for improving the global competence of university graduates, national governments across different parts of the globe have to on the one hand expand higher education enrolments and on the other hand assure high quality in teaching and research in order to make sure their higher education systems can compete globally. Many Asian states have been in the forefront of this effort to improve national competitiveness by rais…
Higher Education Transformations for Global Competitiveness
International Benchmarking with the Best Universities
Massification, diversification and internationalisation of higher education in China
Higher education governance and policy in China
China has experienced significant social, economic and political transformations since its economic reform started in the late 1970s. Considerable changes in its policy-making and implementation approaches have also emerged. Confronted with the intensified tension between the call for efficiency and strong pressure to improve social welfare, the Chinese government had no choice but to become instrumentally pragmatic in adopting different governan…
Searching for new welfare governance in China
In the past decade, the influence of global forces for public sector reforms through the involvement of third sector organizations in social service delivery in the form of contracting out of social services has been growing. Understanding that the state alone can have difficulties financing and providing good quality social services, the Chinese government has made attempts to engage non-governmental organizations to deliver them. This article c…
From State Control to Governance
The Productivist Construction of Selective Welfare Pragmatism in China
This article discusses whether Mainland China under the Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao leadership (2003–13) has developed a new welfare settlement, the emphasis of which is to shift away from a ‘productivist’ focus on education and healthcare investment towards a more ‘protective’ approach, characterized by investing into social protection and establishing a minimum living guarantee for both the urban and rural poor. In so doing, this article reviews t…
Economic prosperity or democracy
After Hong Kong is integrated with mainland China in July 1997, the economic and political environments of the two places will inevitably link up with each other. Economic modernization significantly not only improves the living conditions of the Chinese, but also alters their social structure and political values. As such, economic prosperity and democracy become the two conflicting values in Hong Kong and China during the transition to 2000. Th…
Private Challenges to Public Dominance
The principal goal of this article is to examine the policy context in which private education has emerged in the post-Mao period, with particular attention paid to exploring the strategies adopted by educationalists and professionals in the Pearl River Delta to expand their control over the educational realm. This paper is based upon recent field visits to various private schools and colleges in the delta. The author observes that Chinese schola…
Privatization Or Marketization
Intellectuals and the State in Post-Mao China
To understand political change in contemporary China it is crucial to understand the position of intellectuals in that society and their often troubled relation to the state. This book explores the id
Merging of the public and private boundary
The Cost of Managerialism
Universities and other institutions of higher learning now encounter far more challenge, and are subjected to an unprecedented level of external scrutiny. All providers of higher education today inhabit a more competitive world where resources are becoming scarcer, but at the same time they have to accommodate increasing demands from the local community as well as changing expectations from parents and employers. In order to be more responsive to…
Beyond Organized Dependence
The economic reforms of the late 1970s in China have raised general living standards particularly in the coastal urban areas. At the same time, however, they have increased unemployment and widened inequalities. This article examines these issues in Guangzhou, one of the cities where market principles dominate, by looking at workers' actual living standards as well as how they perceive them. Clearly workers in private and semi-private industries …
Globalization or re-colonization
Marketizing higher education in post-Mao China
Reflecting globalization effects on local policy
Recent comparative education policy studies show that even though there seems to be similar patternsand trends in higher education reforms in East Asian societies, the recently initiated higher education reforms have had very diverse agendas. Thus, the considerable convergence of policy rhetoric and general policy objectives may not satisfactorily explain the complicated processes of changes and the dynamic interactions between global, regional a…
Advance and Retreat
During the Fourth Plenum of the Fifteenth Party Congress in September 1999, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) passed a Resolution on State Enterprise Reform that was replete with contradictions. It emphasized the significance of the state sector in China's economy, but promised to privatize state-owned enterprises faster (SOEs). It vowed to separate politics and enterprise, but asserted the importance of' Party control ov…
A Study of Job Preference and Work Ethics in Guangzhou
Guangdong is the province one step ahead in China and Guangzhou is the city one step ahead in Guangdong.' Being one of the most economically active cities in China, Guangzhou citizens have generally experienced improved living standards and a better quality of life since the economic reform started in the late 1970s. What is also true is that economic modernization has changed the social structure, allowing far more social mobility in the post-Ma…
Educational Reforms and Coping Strategies under the Tidal Wave of Marketisation
It has been a global trend, since the 1980s, that the process of marketisation has been influential in the decision making of social policies around the world, and that this tidal wave is now crossing over to the Asia–Pacific region as well. Education policy, as one of the important social policies for many developing countries, has been influential in the forefront of national development in terms of manpower training, as well as in other arenas…
The Decline of State-owned Enterprises in China
China has recognised that the benefits of growth are not being shared equally throughout the country. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) have been an expensive burden for the government, hampering both job creation and economic growth. The year 1999 signalled a deepening of structural reform in China towards an open market economy led increasingly by the private sector. A constitutional amendment in the summer of 1999 recognised the important role of…
Academic capitalisation in the new millennium
English Universities and other institutions of higher learning now encounter far more challenges and are subjected to an unprecedented level of external scrutiny. All providers of higher education today inhibit a more competitive world where resources are becoming scarcer, but at the same time they have to accommodate increasing demands from the local community as well as changing expectations from parents and employers. In such a policy context,…
From State Control to Governance
Reflections on the Impact of Globalization on Educational Restructuring in Hong Kong
This concluding chapter reflects on globalization's effects on local education policy, with particular reference to the question: To what extent has educational development in Hong Kong been shaped by the global trends of decentralization and marketization? There are a lot of changes in common between Hong Kong's education system and those elsewhere, which suggest that Hong Kong's education system has been affected by similar trends. Before we ju…
Changing Government Role for Socio-economic Development in Hong Kong in the Twenty-first Century
As Hong Kong is now facing economic restructuring and social problems of various kinds, it is not surprising that the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has begun to introduce new measures and policies to make the government more efficient and effective in terms of service provision and resource allocation. As notions of 'accountability' and 'value for money' are repeatedly stressed by the government, the subsequent…
From Nationalization to Marketization
The shift from “government” to “governance” has been widely debated both in the West, where the debate originated, and in the Asia‐Pacific, where it is a strong emergent theme. In the West, early work concentrated on problems of government failure in the realms of regulation, welfare and development. This developed into a focus on the increasingly complex challenges facing modern states. By the mid‐1990s, bodies such as the Organization for Econo…
Globalization and Educational Restructuring in the Asia Pacific Region
The focus of this book is to examine the growing impact of globalization on education policy and development in the Asia Pacific region. It analyses the reaction of selected societies and the strategi
Globalization and Educational Restructuring in the Asia Pacific Region
Similar Trends, Diverse Agendas
Globalisation is a central concept in this paper but it is important to note that 'globalisation' is a highly contested term. Strong globalisation theory argues that the global economy is dominated by uncontrollable global forces in which nation states are structurally constrained and therefore the capacity of modern states eventually declines. Unlike strong globalists, other scholars believe even though there may be similar trends and patterns i…
Education in the New China
Mok Ka Ho reviews the book "Education in the New China: Shaping Ideas at Work" by Yvonne Turner and Amy Acker
Globalization and Marketization in Education
Globalization has effected tremendous change to the character and functions of education worldwide. This unique book focuses on its impact upon Hong Kong and Singapore, and how these two East Asian Tigers have responded to the strong global tide of marketization in shaping and developing their education policies. The authors discuss the way in which increasingly prominent tides of marketization, privatization, corporatization and decentralization…
Pro-competition Policy Tools and State Capacity
In the last decade, the higher education systems in Hong Kong and Singapore have experienced the processes of marketisation and corporatisation. Public universities are under constant pressures to restructure themselves to become more entrepreneurial and globally competitive. The principal goal of the article is to compare and contrast how and why governments in Hong Kong and Singapore have increasingly adopted more pro-competition policy tools, …
Political science (107 works) · Economics (94 works) · Economic growth (88 works) · China (72 works) · Sociology (55 works) · Higher education (46 works) · Higher Education Governance and Development (46 works) · Politics (41 works) · Geography (37 works) · Business (34 works)