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EDUCATION
The Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong was inaugurated in 1963 as a federal university composed of three constituent colleges - New Asia College (founded in 1949), Chung Chi College (founded in 1951) and United College (founded in 1956). It is a self-governing corporation which draws its income mainly from government grants. The campus occupies more than 110 hectares of land near Sha Tin.
Since its early days, the university has adopted a distinctive academic system of its own, which in many ways is different from that of a traditional British university. Most students are admitted to the undergraduate programme after six years of secondary education, and the Bachelor's degree is granted upon the completion of a number of course credits and the passing of a degree examination assessed by external examiners from home and abroad.
The university offers a wide range of undergraduate courses through its 47 departments grouped under five faculties. Four of the faculties - arts, business administration, science and social science - offer four-year programmes leading to Bachelor's degrees. The Faculty of Medicine, which will produce its first graduates in 1986, runs a five-year programme with two years of pre-clinical studies followed by three years of clinical work. Clinical teaching is conducted mainly in the university's teaching hospital - the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin. The university emphasises bilingualism; most courses are taught in Chinese, but English is also used widely.
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At the postgraduate level, there are 49 academic and professional programmes leading to the degrees of Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Philosophy, Master of Philosophy, Master of Business Administration, Master of Social Work, Master of Divinity, Master of Arts, and Master of Arts in Education as well as Diplomas in Education and Social Work.
Part-time degree programmes leading to Bachelors' degrees (Bachelor of Business Administration; Bachelor of Arts in Chinese and English, Music; and Bachelor of Social Science in Social Work) and Master's degrees in Translation, Business Administration and Social Work as well as professional diplomas in both Education and Social Work are offered to working adults.
New programmes launched in 1985-6 comprised Doctor of Medicine; Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry, Clinical and Pathological Sciences, Marketing and International Business and Mathematics; and Master of Philosophy in Clinical and Pathological Sciences. Expansion in the fields of education, social work, computer science and medicine is expected in the coming years. There are plans to establish engineering studies in the near future. In the postgraduate studies, greater emphasis will be placed on research work and training of research students.
The university is strongly committed to research and other academic activities. In addition to research work conducted in the teaching departments, six research centres are operating under the Research Institutes of Chinese Studies, Science and Technology, and Social Studies.
Competition for university places is intense. Over 20 000 candidates sat the various public examinations held in 1985, and 1 261 were admitted to first year studies in the university. Enrolment as of September 1985 totalled 7 009, including 5 257 full-time and 442 part-time undergraduate students and 418 full-time and 892 part-time postgraduate students. Virtually all students are local. About half of the students are given hostel places. With an annual growth rate set at three per cent, the student population will reach 7 000 at the end of the decade.
In 1985-6, the Department of Extramural Studies offered more than 1 100 courses with a total enrolment of more than 39 000. Besides general courses and those leading to the