CO129-594-2 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University. For extracted photographs see CN 3-45- Advisory Committee report 1-7-1946 - 19-8-1946 — Page 128

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general

further existence. r el sin

me, The provision

of a college of medicine and of technical institutes of less than university status in Hong Kong would, in the Committedly our opinion, be adequate to meet the needs of these students in the period before university facilities w developed in Malaya.

THE QUESTION OF PRESTIGE

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2

dissolution

bein

maintain

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The Committee appreciate that the th of the University woull be a shuck to the Colony and ostions of opinion in

hin and the Far East. We It have that forty inside redtheor whher the claims of sentiment and prestige, the practical velue of the continuity of tradition, and the need to avoid the Cubarrassing political implications involved in a decision to close the University were sufficient to justify the restoration

f the University, merant more than its formen scale. The information et Jisplf the Committcends to believe! that the University ngl a great extent qucose lot in not beeos food (intaining British standards in its undergraduate training o

nd examinations, but that university standards in research hauallems? Pen quite beyond its powers • The Gommittse recognized the t

University in Hong Kong

in futurs have to stand far more severe tests of comparison than before the Japanese Occupation, in the face of the rapilly rising standards of the Chinese universitics. If revived rely on its inadequate them pre-war basis, the University woul relatively be in an increasingly inferior position. It could not fairly claim to be a university unless its staff possessed the quality and facilities enabling them to make significant contributions to knowledge by research. Even in its undergraduate work, it would, in the new competitive conditions, run the risk that its degrees might come to be held in so little esteem that in other British, or in Chinese and American universities, its graduate s would be required to pursue further courses of undergraduate studies before they could be admitted to postgraduate courses. Such a position would be discreditable, indeed intolerable. We The Committed judge that the pretentiousness of maintaining

n institution of less than University quality with the title rl superficial attributes of a university would, over a period of years, do more damage to British prestige than the

rank and intelligible decision now to substitute for the university a group of professional schools of first-class standards.

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how

by are

breplace

We The Committo was thus of opinion that neither the present needs of Hong Kong itself, nor the requirements of students in other British territories in the Far East, nor the two together, constitute sufficient justification for the great effort required and the heavy burden on local resources entailed in the establishment of a full university ɔn a permanent basis. The we are Committoo

Further of opinion that to establish an institution of less than university standard and to call it a university would be seriously damaging to British prestige. Unless, therefore, there were different reasons for restoring a full university, the mmittee fool that

not recommend the continuation f the University

f Hong Kɔng.

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR ASSISTING ANGLO-CHINESE UNDERSTANDING.

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The more deeply the Cmmittee studied the Universit;

¿versity's past and the present situation, the more impressed it

/need

With the

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