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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
undergraduate and post-graduate students, both full-time and part-time. Of this number 295 or 26% were women. The general medium of study is English. The minimum qualification for entry to undergraduate courses is gained through the Matriculation Examination, which is similar in type and standard to the General Certificate of Education Examinations conducted by the Univer- sities of the United Kingdom. Most of the undergraduates are Chinese but many other races are represented, particularly from South-East Asia. Three hundred and eight university students are receiving financial aid in the form of scholarships or bursaries.
The possibility of increasing undergraduate numbers to 1,500 or more over the next five years is under consideration.
The number of full-time teaching staff, from demonstrators upward, is 177. Of these over half are locally recruited.
A new University Ordinance, conferring a greater degree of autonomy upon the University, was brought into force on 1st September 1958. The main changes in the new Ordinance are in the composition and powers of the Court and the Council, which now include a proportion of elected members, and in the institution of a Convocation of graduate members of the University. The Ordinance is also dealt with in Chapter 12.
The development of a building site south of the Main Building for a new Library and Students' Union, with funds to be provided partly from Hong Kong Government sources and partly by a grant from Colonial Development and Welfare funds is at an advanced stage of planning. It is hoped that building will start during 1959.
The University set up in February 1958 an Engineering Advisory Committee to ascertain the need for fully qualified, locally trained civil, mechanical and electrical engineers and to investigate the extent to which local industry might contribute to the cost involved. In November the Government announced that, in the light of the Committee's report, it was prepared to provide $350,000 as half the capital cost involved in the expansion of the University Faculty of Engineering by the reinstatement of degree courses in electrical and mechanical engineering. (The civil engineering course was restored shortly after the war). The Government's undertaking was subject to certain conditions, one of which is that the other half of the capital cost should be raised from unofficial sources.