HONG KONG PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
465
There is only one work target to share,
Council and Department each has a responsibility to bear. To build our homes together,
Hong Kong people will be heartier and happier.
The Chairman, with these remarks, I support the motion.
PROFESSOR SHANE ZEE SZE-YONG (in Cantonese):—Mr Chairman, I would like to speak on the topic of ‘How to strengthen the coordination between the Provisional Urban Council and the universities in the development of ‘general education'.
In recent years, the 8 universities under the administration of the University Grants Committee have made strenuous efforts to develop general education so that the undergraduate courses offered will enable students to acquire wider and more diversified knowledge which is by no means confined to their respective professional field. This is to ensure that the graduates will be proficient not only in professional knowledge. For instance, a science major has to attend some arts courses while a student majoring in arts should also take certain science courses.
Apart from adopting the above approach to broaden the knowledge and horizons of students, the academic departments of the 8 universities seem to have reached a mutual understanding that, in order to expand and diversify the knowledge of university students, courses on culture and art should be included in the general education programme. To help the students have a better understanding of culture and art (in particular some high quality culture and art works around the world as well as Chinese culture and art), text book teaching and classroom lectures within the campus are barely adequate for these channels have a lot of limitations and can do little to arouse the students' interests in art and culture, nor can they enrich their accomplishment and creativity in these areas. Culture and art is something vivid and lively. There is a very close relationship between culture and art and social development, the progress of the times and our spiritual lives. Hence, if we want our university students to learn culture and art effectively and be able to perceive their sublime immensity, we must give these students the opportunity to appreciate the living examples and to come into contact with different categories and varieties of culture and art in their various forms of presentation. It is through personal experience that they can feel and observe the reconditeness and subtlety of culture and art.
Throughout the years, the Urban Services Department and the Urban Council have spared no effort to satisfy the needs of the public on art and culture, and a lot have been done with remarkable results. However, officials of the Urban Services Department and Urban Councillors may have realized that any effort to promote and develop art and culture in Hong Kong effectively on a long-term basis would require something more than the
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