G.F. 326
UGC/GEN/30/68
CONFIDENTIAL
PROPOSED POLYTECHNIC
BRIEF FOR HE THE GOVERNOR
3/8/;
Hong Kong needs provision for high level
vocational education, particularly in technology and commerce. Unless this is provided any further expansion of the
Universities will give less than proportionate benefit
to the community and may lead to the problems of unemployed
or under-employed graduates.
2.
The requirement is for an institution granting qualifications at a variety of advanced levels and with a variety of attendance periods and patterns. There should
be some people on pass or ordinary degree courses as well
as a larger number of people on diploma courses and on
lower level or narrower courses. To ensure the standard
and recognition of the awards they would be made by an
independent Council for Higher Awards. A system of external
examiners would be used..
3.
The course would be vocationally oriented and
detailed curricula would have to be adjusted to industrial and commercial needs. All Diploma courses should include however some instruction in English and some general studies. Training of teachers in technology and commerce would be essential and would be a Polytechnic task.
4.
The Polytechnic would be non-resident and would
be urban centred. An investigation has been made of the
possibility of up-grading the existing Technical College
to undertake these functions but it is considered that this
would require re-staffing and re-equipping on too large a scale. The Technical College will not only continue to be needed but should be further developed, as should provision for technical education at lower levels. Without adequate provision for the more elementary types of technical and
commercial education the Polytechnic would be seriously
hampered.
5.
The possibility of expanding one of the two Universities to constitute a "comprehensive" university covering the Polytechnic field has also been investigated.
/ It....
CONFIDENTIAL