Professional development - cost-effectiveness consideration

Recently, problem of inflation in education and professional development has worsened: re-exam and assignment re-submission fees have increased. Membership fees of professional bodies and course fees are all rising much faster than the consumer price index. At the same time, I do not feel that, just because students pay more fees, they learn faster.

Quite a no of education centres in Hong Kong offer degree programmes that emphasize "reasonably short duration of study to obtain a good academic qualification". It is not difficult to comprehend their effectiveness on students' learning.

For quite some time, I encourage students, especially those who have already graduated with academic degrees, to enroll for certain professional bodies' self study programmes because they are affordable and are useful instruments for cost-effective professional development. The following professional bodies offer such exam-based facilities and they are available in Hong Kong:

a. http://www.cips.org/  (for Purchasing and Supply)
b. http://www.abeuk.com/ (for Business Mgt, Human Resource Mgt, Marketing, and Hospitality & Tourism).

There are conventional programmes with self-study mode in accounting and company secretaryship; these more conventional professional progammes tend to steer students to study past exam papers so as to "respond" fast in exam. Due to that, I personally do not have a favourable impression.

Finally, I think students could also consider employing private tutors to coach them to prepare for these external,  exam-based study. The key consideration is to find a good tutor; the tutor fee should be affordable; it is also a good idea to form a small study group to  be support by private tutors - to make the whole exercise more cost-effective.

Spending too much money on education is a bad idea; spending more does not necessarily means learning more; study for a shorter degree programme programme does not mean learning is thus faster. Most often, it just means that the process of learning is more stressful.