Hong Kong can surely feel proud after six of its eight universities featured in the Asian top 50 list released last week by research institute Quacquarelli Symonds.

The University of Hong Kong led the rankings, followed by the University of Science and Technology in second place and the Chinese University in fourth.

The National University of Singapore jumped seven places to third.

There is concern that Singaporean universities are catching up and may overtake Hong Kong's.

However, Hong Kong Institute of Education vice president Cheng Yin- cheong pointed out that several years ago Hong Kong universities were behind Singapore's top institution.

Hong Kong's three leading institutions surpassed Singapore's only in recent years.

The latest rankings show that the gap between the cities has narrowed.

Cheng added that out of a total of 100 points the difference in scores between HKUST and Singapore's best is only 0.4 points.

The Chinese University is just 0.2 points behind Singapore.

Although the difference between their scores is tiny, the weighting in various scoring criteria does not reflect reality.

For example, in research quality, the two indicators - papers per faculty and citations per paper - have the same weighting. Hence the ranking can only be used as reference.

Cheng also pointed out that the Quacquarelli Symonds Asian university rankings are not consistent with its world rankings.

For example, in Asia HKU is four places above the University of Tokyo.

But in last year's world rankings, the University of Tokyo was No22, two places above HKU.

Cheng said when comparing Singapore and Hong Kong as regional education hubs, factors such as population policy and strategies for developing the education sector should be taken into account in addition to the universities themselves.

Currently, Hong Kong's education quality is better than that of Singapore. But Singapore beats Hong Kong in areas such as strategies in developing itself into an education hub and population policies.

Hong Kong will still have an edge if it implements policies to develop the education industry.

The achievements of universities come only after years of hard work, especially in academic research. This may take 10 years at least to bear fruit.

Also, many factors have not been taken into account in rankings, such as the political and economic influences of the universities and their performance in individual subjects.

So judging from only two years of rankings it cannot be said that Singapore is catching up with Hong Kong. But Hong Kong universities have to keep working hard to stay ahead.