Bulletin Number Two 1984

Profile of 1983 Freshmen The University admitted 1,343 undergraduates in September 1983. This year, the 'Survey of the First Year Students', conducted by the Office of Student Affairs, has a high response rate of 95.2%. The average age of the students is 19, which is similar to that of last year. Again, the male average is slightly higher than the female average (19.1 and 18.9 respectively). About two-thirds of the freshmen of the Faculty of Arts are female, while the Faculties of Science and Medicine have less than 20% female. The overall male to female ratio is about 2:1. Close to 72% o f the freshmen profess no religious beliefs. Those who do are mainly Protestants (20.5%) and Catholics (6.2%). There is agreat diversity in the types of schooling that the students undertook before entering university. Roughly 29% of the students attended Chinese Middle Schools, and 70% Anglo-Chinese Schools. About 30% had completed Middle 6 ， 55.6% Form 6, and 18.2% Form 7. Some 17.1% of the students had undertaken private studies. In general, the students (98.7%) were active in extra-curricular activities at school and 68.3% had travelled outside Hong Kong. Approximately 65% of the students had had some form of paid employment prior to entering university. The educational standard of parents is slightly higher this year than last year: 9.5% of the fathers and 4.5% of the mothers have received education at tertiary level. 24% of the fathers and 15.6% of the mothers were educated to secondary standard. About half of the parents have completed primary school education. As for parents' occupations, 20.6% of the fathers are semi-skilled workers, 12% are service workers and 11.4% are store-owners or merchants, while 14% of the fathers are in retirement. An over whelming majority of the mothers (65.7%) are house wives, while 18% are being employed as semi-skilled workers. The Survey revealed that 38%of the students came from families with a monthly income of less than $4,000, while the average monthly household income o f the students surveyed was $5,345. The average monthly household income per head was $920. The majority of the students (60%) live in Kowloon, 22.4% in the New Territories, and 17.1% on Hong Kong Island. More than half of them are from the public housing estates, with a living area of 2.6 to 5 square metres per person. This suggests that a sizeable proportion o f the students (41.1%) live and study in rather congested conditions. The average size o f household of the students is 5.9 persons. About three-quarters of the freshmen expressed a need for campus accommodation. Another reason for such a need is the time taken to commute between campus and home (more than two hours for 60% of them) and the electrification of the Kowloon-Canton Railway did not seem to have shortened the commuting time. About 64% of the students expected to obtain some form of financial support for university educa tion from Government grants and loans, and that about 41% of them intended to take up summer or part-time jobs to help provide for their education expenses. About three-quarters of the students indi cated that they had to rely on their families for partial or full financial support. According to the Survey, the three most frequently quoted reasons for pursuing a university education are: to seek knowledge (90.8%), to experience university life (61.1%) and to contribute to society after graduation (60.5%). About 94%of the students selected their major field of study because o f their interest in the subject. Roughly 67% of them believed that study in their chosen field would lead to promising career prospects. Almost one-quarter of the students reported that they were somewhat influenced by their parents, friends or relatives in their choice of the major field, while 7.4% of them claimed that they had no choice other than what they had opted for. The majority of freshmen expected a university education to provide them with specialized training in their subjects of interest and assistance in perfecting their characters. About 76% o f the students think that an all-round education is very important. Almost half of the students would like to choose teaching as their career, while 36% of them are interested in the Administration and Management field. One-third of the students prefer to be engaged in research work. Other preferred career fields include Mass Communi cation and Banking. Students surveyed claimed that they were most competent in adaptability, self-confidence ， analytical ability and Chinese communication skill. On the other hand, they indicated deficiency in English communication skill, social skills and creativity. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 7