Bulletin Winter 1988

Thirty-seventh Congregation for the Conferment of First Degrees The University held its thirty-seventh congregation fo r the conferment o f first degrees on the campus on 8th December, 1988. The Pro-Chancellor, Sir Yuet-keung Kan, officiated at the ceremony. Professor Charles K. Kao, the Vice-Chancellor, addressed the congregation on the topic 'University Education in the Twenty-first Century'. This year, 1,354 graduates received their bachelor's degrees, o f whom 303 were awarded the degree o f bachelor o f arts, 255 bachelor o f business administration, 66 bachelor o f medicine and bachelor o f surgery, 349 bach elor o f science, and 381 bachelor o f social science. Bachelor's degrees were conferred fo r the first time to a to ta l o f 57 students o f the part-time degree programmes in Business Adm inistration, and Chinese and English. Address b y the V ice-Chancellor University Education in the Twenty-first Century Mr. Pro-Chancellor, graduates ， honoured guests ， ladies and gentlemen: The dawn o f the twenty-first century w ill be upon us in merely a dozen years. Within these years are we content to let university education proceed as it is today? Is there any specific reason why special changes must be made? Let us talk about this topic now on this big day — today when you receive the degree for which you have worked very hard during the past four years, or longer for our medical gradu ates. I like to offer my heartiest congratulations for your achievements, and let me thank your parents and loved ones for giving you the support and encour agement. I like also to thank the staff o f this Univer sity for their unceasing effort in working towards attaining high quality education. During the last few years it has become in creasingly clear to me that something is fermenting in the university world. The science and technology departments are constantly struggling to re-equip themselves w ith new apparatus as waves o f new tech niques and discoveries keep arriving at ever-increasing rates. The curriculum gets heavier as new topics are added and old ones are retained. Social science sub jects also are mushrooming to reflect the complexity o f modem society. Even the arts subjects are opening out to new avenues w ith computerized data bases for more efficient and thorough compilation o f facts and research materials. The vast in flux o f new knowledge is flooding the minds o f the students and staff alike. They are groaning under the weight and are desper ately struggling to keep afloat. A t the same time, the need for tertiary educa tion is recognized by all as a distinct advantage for coping w ith an increasingly competitive life . As a result, more people are demanding access to tertiary education and governments are developing and ex panding tertiary institutions to meet this demand to ensure the competitiveness o f a region or a country. This is diversifying the tertiary education institutions into different types to cater for different and varied demands. We are all familiar w ith the universities, polytechnics, technical colleges etc. The once elitist university system is now moving towards a popular system w ith broader access and greater diversity. This situation has been described by Dr. Clark Kerr, a past president o f the University o f California system and an overseas member o f the Council o f this University as follows. He said ， 'Higher education has beenmoving over the past century from a guild-like status on the 2