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1.3
1.4
view. They also noted that there appeared to be a tension between the professional/vocational aims of the courses as stated and the aim to give students breadth and deeper academic understanding. Other general questions raised with the senior staff of the Faculty related to such issues as the language of instruction and assessment. Members learned that in parts of the Faculty a significant proportion of the teaching was in Chinese but that assessment could be either in English or Chinese at the choice of the student. However, when a student determined on his choice at the beginning of an examination he was then compelled to complete the examination in the language which he had chosen.
One of the issues which members pursued in some detail was the question of the particular rationale for the courses with which they had been presented. They were told that they had not been devised in order to meet available staff expertise, but that the views of industry and commerce had been sought through a Business Advisory Committee in the Business Management Department and also through the many formal and informal links which members of staff had with the Business community. In addition, any development or change to programmes of study had to be approved by Faculty Board.
There did not appear to Members to be any particular mechanism for ensuring that staff in post were able to meet the demands placed on them by industry given the apparent lack of a staff development programme. Nevertheless, it was clear that a number of staff in some Departments were involved in programmes of development on their own initiative and also it was possible for staff to go on study leave from time to time. Faculty staff were encouraged to do research and the Research Fund was very small indeed.
2.
2.1
THE OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSES
The question of possible tension between professional and academic aims was not perceived by staff as being a difficult one to overcome. In their view, the main aim of students was to advance their career prospects; this could be done by both meeting the needs of professional bodies and by the development of the individual student through the broadening courses which were included in the programme and which were not just narrowly professional. An example was given from the Secretarial Management course: it was noted by the staff that students got jobs very quickly using straight forward secretarial skills; however, before very long they moved upwards into administrative and even executive positions, and in the view of the staff the 3-year programme would enhance those career opportunities. In Economics and in Business