Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1978

• ASAIHL Seminar • Postgraduate Education in Southeast Asia The ASAIHL Seminar on Postgraduate Education in Southeast Asia was held at this University from 3rd to 6th April ， 1978. This was the second time The Chinese University played host to an academic gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian Insti tutions of Higher Learning (ASAIHL), of which the University is a member. 49 participants from member institutions of the ASAIHL and educational organi zations in Australia and the United Kingdom attended the Seminar. Dr. Choh-Ming li , Vice-ChanceUor of this Uni versity, delivered the opening as well as the closing addresses, and the President of the ASAIHL, Professor Swasdi Skulthai of Mahidol University, Thailand, also addressed the gathering at the Opening Ceremony. The keynote address was delivered by Professor Ma L in , Vice-Chancellor-Designate of this University. The four-day seminar focussed on three topics: 1. Research and Graduate Education 2. Graduate Education in Relation to Social Needs 3. Institutional Interchange in Graduate Educa tion Principal speakers of the Seminar were Professor Ungku A. Aziz, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Malaysia; Professor Dr. Sujudi, Deputy Rector of the University of Indonesia; and Professor Wu Teh-Yao, Dean of the College of Graduate Studies, Nanyang University. Three of The Chinese University's dele gates delivered papers: Professor M. H. Hsing in his capacity as Dean of the Graduate School, Professor S. S. Hsueh as Director of the International Asian Studies Programme, and Dr. Ambrose Yeo-chi King as Chair man of the Department of Sociology. In his closing remarks, Dr. Choh-Ming l i said that graduate education is an indispensable part of the University, because it is through research and graduate education that a set of useful data relevant to each region and each country gets integrated into the various academic disciplines. Many text books have been written in the West, and, although these contain some very useful concepts, such concepts are on the whole based on data collected from countries in the West. It is now time for universities in Southeast Asia to collect and inject national data into their studies and the best way of doing this is through graduate education and research. He also said that the economic cost of research and graduate education may be quite considerable, but the social cost of an incomplete university education is even more worry­ ing. A poor education at the university level is the most expensive waste of human resources. 3