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Eye on the World: A Step Closer to a Global Village

Prof. Jimmy Yu
Head of United College
(Photo by Keith Hiro)

A half-century ago, Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian scholar, coined the term ‘global village’ for the first time in his book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962). McLuhan described how the globe has been contracted into a village by information technology and the instantaneous movement of information from every quarter to every point at the same time. Today, thanks to the Internet and popular social media, McLuhan’s prophecy is fulfilled.

In such a rapidly globalizing era, how can students keep up with the changing world? United College launched the Globe-Oriented Active Learning (GOAL) Programme in 2008 to offer various scholarships and financial awards to students taking part in long- or short-term overseas learning activities. Prof. Jimmy C. Yu, Head of United College, said, ‘The College is not only meant to transmit knowledge and help students to find employment. It also serves to nurture their self-learning ability, facilitate their holistic development, and help them to appreciate the beauty of the world.’

The GOAL Programme provides a wide range of activities such as language and cultural learning, social services, internship and studies. So far, about 1,600 students have participated in the programme and visited Australia, France, mainland China, the Netherlands, Spain, Taiwan, and the US.

The GOAL Programme, which reflects the College’s spirit of innovation, organizes new activities from time to time to enrich students’ experience. A good example is the ‘Pass-it-on: Service Learning Programme’ organized last summer jointly with Beijing’s Tsinghua University and Taiwan’s Tsing Hua University. Each institution sent 10 students to take part in the programme which comprised three parts. The first part of the programme was held in Hong Kong where students attended a series of lectures and seminars to learn about the social service system. They also visited grassroots families living in sub-divided units and cubicle apartments in Sham Shui Po, and learnt to take care of children who were mentally challenged or autistic at the Spastics Association of Hong Kong.

Next the students headed to Taiwan for the second part that included learning about and practising organic farming in Nan-ao, redecorating schoolyards and cleaning second-hand toys at two primary schools in Hsinchu, and landscaping Dong Shih, Chiayi, together with its residents.

The programme’s last stop was Beijing. Students visited rural areas including Hua County in Henan Province; Pingxiang County and Yu County in Hebei, to provide voluntary English teaching service to primary and secondary students.