CONFIDENTIAL
機密
Annex C
nese University of Hong
Kong on the report of the ad hoc committee on sixth form education
CUHK's Stand Concerning Its Undergraduate Programme
The Chinese University is opposed to any suggestion that it converts its four-year undergraduate curriculum into a three-year one. Apart from the fact that most universities adopt a four-year undergraduat e curriculum, there are several other reasons for our stand.
First, it is the University's conviction that the first year of its present four- year programme, with its emphasis on academic and personal counselling and intellectual encounters between teachers and students outside as well as inside the classroom, is a crucial stage in university education. It helps the student to discover his individual interests and intellectual potential, to enhance his ability for clear and intelligent thinking and to make wise decisions in the choice of major and minor subjects. It also provides the student with a broad-based General Education programme designed to help him solve problems arising from the transition from school to university and to meet the challenge of new methods of study and learning.
Another reason for the Chinese University's objection to shortening its four-year undergraduate programme is the imminent introduction of a new system which consists in the provision of a balanced diet of "subject- orientated" and "student-orientated" teaching as recommended by the Fulton Commission in its Report in 1976.
Beginning in 1977-78, a fairly substantial part of staff time must be released to take up small-group "student-orientated" teaching, which is concerned with developing in the student habits and attitudes of mind characteristic of the scholar in his chosen field and relevant to the solution of the kind of problems the student is likely to encounter in life. The introduction of this "student-orientated teaching", with the concomitant need to rethink the philosophy behind the University curriculum and make a conscientious review of all the courses, will be one of the most challenging tasks in the immediate future. Any drastic structural changes in the University's undergraduate curriculum involving its conversion into a three-year programme in the near future would be most undesirable and might even be seriously disruptive. Nevertheless, the University would not rule out the possibility or desirability of making a comprehensive assessment of the new dual teaching system, together with a general review of its four-year undergraduate programme, in say five years' time.
From quite a different angle, the University would not respond favourably to any suggestion, which, if accepted, might jeopardize the interests of students from families within the lower income brackets. At present, because the Chinese University accepts applicatiom for entry to its matriculation examination from Middle Six or Lower Form Six pupils, young men or women who possess sufficient financial means for Middle Six or Lower Form Six study only stand a chance of gaining admission to the Chinese University. If the length of undergraduate study was to be three years for both institutions as is implied in the proposed two-year Form Six course for all pupils who wish to gain admission to the local universities, the opportunity for needy young people to receive higher education would be considerably reduced. Thus, the required completion of a two-year Form Six courue before sitting for the universities' entrance examination would mean closing the universities' doors to such students.
G.F. 323
CONFIDENTIAL
機密