Bulletin Special Supplement Jun 1965

PART I I I . G E N E R AL E D U C A T I ON C25. Some f o rm of general education for the students of the Chinese University is desirable for the following reasons:— (a) Th e basic justification of an education that is broad rather than narrow lies in the very nature of the modern world. The complexity o f organization, the degree of specialised and intelligent skill required for most jobs, the unceasing change s that accompany a desire for progress in every sphere of activity, and the fundamental interdependence of every branch of knowledge — these factors deman d of our leaders something more than the skil l of a specialist. Specialist knowledge they must have but in addition an awareness of what is happening outside their own field, a willingness to learn from, and cooperate with, other disciplines, a readiness both to evaluate and, when approved, to adopt new techniques , and a devotion to their own line o f activity coupled w i th a humble yet rational appreciation of their own dependence upon the labors of others. (For an illustration of what we mean see Appendix B). (b) T he rapid changes in societ y make it very difficult to forecast what its future needs w i ll be; a narrow field of study, carried out without an awareness of what is happening in other fields, may make a student unfitted for the world where he or she hopes to make a living. (c) There are indications that in Ho ng Kong, as in other industrial societies, employers may prefer to employ a student w i th a good general education who can readily learn the technique necessary for his or her position rather than one who is equipped only w i th a narrowly specialized education, (d) A course of general education during the first year enables students to postpone the choice of their degree subjects until the en d of the first year when they will be in a position to make a more rational choice than directly after finishing a t school. C26. Ideally all students should stud y during their first year a common course consistin g of three parts, Humanities, Social Sciences an d Natural Sciences. Lectures would f o rm part of such a course but the chief method of teaching would be small tutorial groups backed up b y reading and written work on the part of the students. An integrated first-year course along these lines might necessitate a reorganization of the present programmes in the different degree subjects. We spent a great dea l of our time discussing different schemes but coul d come to no conclusion, chiefly because we felt the colleges are not yet ready for such a step. It doe s seem, however, that an integrated course would present less difficult y if confined to the Natural Sciences alone. I n these there is already common ground, especially between Physics and Chemistry, and in man y schools and universities in the U.S.A. and th e U . K . there is to hand a good deal of proven experience to serve as guide. We therefore recommend that the Faculty of Science should work out a scheme for a common course in the Natural Sciences for all first year students of the faculty to be introduced by stages , the first stage to begin as early as possible. Although we do not propose a common course for all first-year students at the moment, we recommend that this ideal should be considered by Senate and that detailed plans shoul d be produced as soon as possible. C27. The study of languages should not be regarded as a part of the genera l course. These are 'tool' subjects and the stress is solely on the proficiency in the actual language; th e appreciation of the language as literature would be part of the literature courses in the Humanities. A test in both Chinese and English should be held not later than the first month of each of th e first two years, and all those students who were recommended by their departments would be allowed to take it. Those who passed would be exempt f r om language study during that year. The university might well organize intensiv e language training courses during the vacation before the autumn term. The ultimate ideal is that students should come up to the university needin g to study only one language. We look forward to the publication by New Asia College of the evaluation of the results of their pre-terminal month's course in English for their new students. C28. We further recommend that some part of the time of all students during their remaining three years should be given to some f o rm of general education; the organization, content and examination of such a course would be in the hands of the college. A P P E N D I X A . The committee sent out a questionnair e to members of the teaching staff o f the three colleges. The following is a summary of thos e replies which were sent in. As was to be expected, there was little uniformity in the replies and this summary cannot do justice to the wide variety of points of view presented. P ART I. T HE L ECTURE A N D O T H ER M E T H O DS OF T E A C H I NG 1. The functions of the lecture a r e : -- (a) to present the fundamentals of a subject or theory, to make clear that 'high lights', 15