Bulletin Report of The Commission on The Chinese University of Hong Kong March 1976

only the obvious difference between the needs of those e.g. with the most scholarly inclinations and those whose aim is vocational training to fit them for the practice of a profession such as medicine or accountancy ； but also those whose intellectual powers would be best developed by the kind of course which is described in the United States of America as “liberal arts and science". Experience suggests, too, that courses can be constructed to provide the right kind of stimulus both for those who flourish in a narrower band of studies and for those whose interest is most keenly stirred by the interaction between two or even three subject disciplines. 48. These considerations have to be borne in mind as the University addresses itself to its basic educational task. This is (1) to instruct students in the subject matter of their particular fields of study ； (2) to give, where appropriate, vocational or professional training for specific activities in the professional field or in public or social service ； (3) to build in the students habits and aptitudes of mind characteristic of the expert in their chosen fields and relevant to the solution of the kind of problems they are likely to encounter later in life ； (4) to equip students for meeting change in a rapidly changing world. Above all, the students should leave the University with their minds stretched through their undergraduate experience and trained to ask about each problem the fundamental question “What is the evidence?" and, to the limit of their capacity, to assess that evidence and draw such conclusions as it can be made legitimately to yield. The University has to realise these aims through the practice of its teaching. 49. The success of university teachers when they have been at their best seems to have been owed to three constantly recurring factors: (a) They have been highly accomplished and authoritative in their subjects ； (b) they have been masters of their chosen methods ； and (c) they have known and thoroughly understood their pupils, both as representatives of a particular set of age groups and also, so far as this was in their power, as individuals. 50. Of (a) we need say little on this occasion 一 except our belief that the devotion to his subject and the scholarly quality of a teacher seldom, if ever, fail anywhere in the world to win a response from those committed to his charge. 51. In regard to (b) we can only emphasize that the success of the teacher depends on his ability to exploit to the full the accumulated wealth of his expertise through a carefully practised spread of methods relevant to the special and often differing needs of his various audiences. Thus an assembly of first-year students presents a special challenge to the most accomplished of lecturers, different from the challenge of the same students in the middle years of their course, and different again from their needs when they come to embark upon the final stages of their course before graduation. The small- group, "student-orientated" teacher must use different methods from those of his colleagues in structured "subject-orientated" teaching ； indeed, it would be absurd if his teaching was no more than a small-scale replica of a lecture. His methods must be such as to stir an active response from each individual member of the group. An initiative has regularly to be demanded of each student. This can take the form of a piece of written work or some other significant task to be the basis of a group discussion. From its strength or weakness a creative dialogue must spring, actively involving each member of the group. The teacher must take the responsibility of seeing that such