The problem of higher technical education
in Malaya.
The Hong Kong Uni- versity's
Faculty.
206
29. The problem of higher education as it presented itself to the Singapore Committee resolved itself practically into the question, whether a technical branch of the Raffles College would be successful. In answering this question in the nega- tive, the Committee quoted the Director of Public Works for the Federated Malay States as having said:-
"For a higher collegiate or University training in engineering I consider that there is no demand. Locally trained Asiatics are unfitted to have ad- ministrative charge in a department with employees of several different races. The case of Hong Kong is different. China offers a vast field for Chinese engineers. Chinese (i.e. the Chinese in Malaya) would prefer to learn engineer- ing in Hong Kong and it would be better for them."
30. The Singapore Committee reported that they had reason to believe that Hong Kong graduates in engineering found it difficult to get suitable employment. It was noted that during the previous seven years (1918-1924) one hundred and seven students were awarded the Hong Kong University degree of B.Sc. in engineering, viz., an average of fifteen a year; but the Singapore Committee regarded it as certain that many of those graduates came from outside the Colony of Hong Kong. After citing the failure of the Government Technical College which was established in Colombo in 1893 to teach civil, mechanical and electrical engineering, but was converted in 1910 into a technical school for subordinates in Government depart- ments, and remarking that a technical college can not be an economic proposition unless in each of the classes in a four years' course there are approximately 30 students, the members unanimously declared themselves as not sanguine that a technical branch of the Raffles College would be successful--
(i) until the struggle for existence grew more acute and the openings in
agriculture and commerce for an increasing population fewer;
(ii) until applied mathematics, drawing, manual instruction and elementary science, were regarded not as extras but as basic subjects in all the schools from which the students would be drawn;
(iii) until the Asiatic parents was prepared to exercise the self-sacrifice economy and patience which most Europeans have to exercise if they desire their children to devote several unpaid years to the study of a profession.
31. The Committee summarized the position as follows:-
'Any effort to open a technical branch at Raffles College will require for its success a liberal system of scholarships without which the children of all but wealthy parents will be unwilling to risk a long course of training dependent for its issue on the test of examinations. This is recognised by the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce of British Malaya which, in pressing for such a branch, hope that 'Government will see its way to award scholarships to bright boys from the English schools, preferably to those of poor parentage'.
JJ
"The provision of such scholarships for a favoured few forming as we have seen an infinitesimal portion of the population is, however, here as in England as much a matter of private endownment as for the expenditure of public money."
32. As was realized by the Singapore Committee some of the difficulties which that Committee found standing in the way of Higher Technical Education in British. Engineering Malaya do not exist in this Colony, but it cannot be denied that the Engineering Faculty of the University has not altogether realized the high hopes (possibly they were unreasonable hopes) with which it was started. The Viceroy of Canton (His Excellency Chan Jen Chung) sent in 1909 a despatch to the chief officials of the various Government bureaux under his jurisdiction requesting them to meet and discuss means to raise subscriptions in aid of the Hong Kong University Endowment Fund. In the despatch the Viceroy said that "the teaching of applied science includ- ing civil, mechanical and electrical engineering and surveying meets the most urgent needs of our country. In the same year Messrs. John Swire & Sons Ltd. and their allied interests contributed £40,000. In so doing Mr. J. H. Scott writing on behalf of his firm to Sir Frederick Lugard said :-