The HKCAAVQ offers a qualifications assessment service for the general public, organisations, and government bureaux/departments. Other assessment services include the assessments of non-local courses leading to higher academic and professional qualifications for registration under the Non-local Higher and Professional Education (Regulation) Ordinance (Cap 493), Continuing Education Fund (CEF) reimbursable courses, and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programmes for insurance intermediaries and estate agents.

Qualifications Assessment

During the reporting year, the HKCAAVQ conducted a review of the Qualifications Assessment policy. The new assessment criteria continue to be outcome-based and make due reference to the Hong Kong Qualifications Framework and the local education system. The assessment will also place emphasis on the location of studies of related programmes; the origins and the recognition status of any transferred credits; and for non-local programmes offered in Hong Kong the accreditation status of the Hong Kong operators.

The updated guidelines and application form to reflect the new assessment criteria came into effect on 1 April 2011. A revised application form for qualifications assessment and more detailed information are publicised on the HKCAAVQ website.

The number of assessed cases declined from the last financial year’s 2,896 to this year’s 2,546, a reduction of 12%. The cases processed this year are categorised into different domains as follows:

By source of application


By level of major qualifications


By place of award of major qualifications
Assessment Service for the Registrar of Non-local Higher and Professional Courses

The HKCAAVQ has been the sole advisor to the Registrar of Nonlocal Higher and Professional Education Courses under the Non-local Higher and Professional Education (Regulation) Ordinance (Cap 493). In December 2010, the service agreement with the Registrar was renewed for another three years until December 2013.

The service demand for assessment of non-local courses remained high with 500 cases (40 new, 337 annual return, and 123 change applications) processed within this reporting period, representing a rise of 38% compared with the same period last year. In particular, the numbers of annual return and change applications increased by 43% and 64% respectively over the figures in the same reporting period of last year. New applications fell by 21%. A breakdown of the 40 new applications is presented below:

By discipline of study


By geographic origin


By level of study
Assessment of CEF Courses

In addition to providing assessment service for CEF courses to the Labour and Welfare Bureau (LWB), the HKCAAVQ also conducts audit visits to CEF course providers on the invitation of the LWB to ensure the delivery of the registered CEF courses is in compliance with the approval conditions determined by the LWB. A total of 80 surprise audit visits were conducted in the reporting year. These visits have proved to be effective in enhancing the quality assurance measures for CEF courses.

In the reporting year, a total of 2,171 applications were assessed, of which 380 were new applications and 1,791 were applications for amendments to registered CEF reimbursable courses. By comparison with the previous reporting period there was a growth of 59% in the number of new applications, mainly from CEF providers from the university sector.

Breakdown of new applications for CEF courses assessment (1 April 2010 – 31 March 2011)



Assessment of CPD Programmes

To further enhance the CPD assessment services for the Insurance Authority (IA) and Estate Agents Authority (EAA), improved measures were introduced to minimise the average processing time without compromising quality of the assessment service. The measures included issuing monthly reminders to course providers with a view to avoiding late submission of applications for annual re-assessment. Assessors were also deployed to handle similar cases from course providers so that unnecessary replication of effort in the assessment process by different assessors could be avoided. These new measures were well received by the course providers.

Within this reporting period, 106 new and 221 annual re-assessment applications were processed under the Insurance Intermediaries Quality Assurance Scheme (IIQAS). Compared to the previous reporting period, there was growth of 29% and 16% in these two areas of assessment. In the Estate Agents Scheme, 10 new and 62 annual re-assessment applications were assessed which represented an increase of 11% and 9% as compared to the figures in the previous reporting period.

Looking Forward

The HKCAAVQ endeavours to maintain good rapport with different stakeholders, including the service commissioning organisations. Regular meetings with different commissioning organisations were arranged to facilitate the quality delivery of the assessment services. This initiative proved effective in the renewal of the service agreements with the Registrar of Non-local Higher and Professional Courses on the assessment of non-local courses, as well as the proposed renewal of service with the EAA and the IA on the assessments of their CPD programmes.

Owing to the extensive experience accumulated from the quality assessment services for non-local courses and the CEF and CPD programmes, the HKCAAVQ has been invited by the Labour Department to consider providing an advisory service for the Minimum Wage Ordinance in 2011.