UMELCO
DRAFT SPEECH BY HON S L CHEN, CBE, DSC, JP
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 12 MARCH 1986
The City Polytechnic Annual Report
Sir,
In accordance with requirements of Section 21 of the
City Polytechnic Ordinance, I lay on the table the Report of the
City Polytechnic of Hong Kong together with a Statement of
Accounts for the period from January 1984 to June 1985. The Report, the first to be submitted
to be submitted to this Council from the City
Polytechnic, chronicles the progress of the first eighteen months
of the new institution's life following its foundation on 1
January 1984. It will be seen from the Report that speed of accomplishment has been the key feature of the period, and that the achievements have been significant and substantial.
when the Planning Committee for the new Polytechnic reported to the Government in June 1982, it was decided that the Polytechnic should admit its first students in October 1984. In
order to achieve this, an interim campus, Argyle Centre Tower II in Mongkok, was acquired shortly after the Polytechnic's formal
establishment. The building had been chosen after an extensive survey carried out by the Planning Committee, and their foresight in doing this literally provided the foundation
foundation for everything
else which followed afterwards. The building was converted to accommodate the Polytechnic's projected academic establishment in only sixteen weeks, so that the Polytechnic was able to offer its
first courses on schedule in October 1984, when almost 500
full-time students and more than 700 part-time students were admitted. By this time it had already recruited 333 academic, administrative and support staff, and had established its basic academic structure, courses, regulations, and admissions
policies.
UMELCO