26
SUMMARY.
73. These financial estimates can be summarised as follows:
Non-recurrent expenditure
i Repair of buildings £46,000
ii Equipment
iii
New Building
£70,000
iv Endowment of basic chairs
Recurrent expenditure
i Salaries
ii Departmental Grants
£
116,000
600,000
350,000
£1,066,000
104,480 per annum
37,500
12
annum
£141,980 per less income of £57,000 £84.980 per annum. 74. In broad terms therefore the provision of a University of the scale and standard we propose will call for an expenditure from sources other than those now available to the University of approximately £1 million capital and £85,000 annually.
Part V. Immediate Action,
"
"
75. By our terms of reference we were asked to advise in some detail on the steps necessary to restart such of the work hitherto undertaken by the University as is essential for the needs of Hong Kong, whatever the decision arrived at on the broader issue." Early in our sessions, however, we were informed that there had been established in London by Order in Council The Hong Kong, University Provisional Powers Committee with authority to deal with immediately important University matters until the proper authorities of the University could fulfil their functions. We have been kept informed of the decisions of this Provisional Powers Committee and have received the following summary of the action it has taken to facilitate an early resumption of higher education in Hong Kong:
(a) Buildings: The Civil Affairs Administration in Hong Kong has undertaken to push forward as rapidly as possible with the work of restor- ing buildings. The Committee asked that high priority should be given to the repair and refitting of the elementary Science laboratories, of the Medical laboratories, of part of the class rooms in the Arts building, of an office and of residences for students and staff.
(b) Libraries: Nothing was necessary here except the separation away from the University stocks of the large numbers of books from other places which were gathered at the library for safe-keeping. The Provisional Powers Committee has not attempted to make good the wartime deficiency of periodicals and new books, but suggests that towards this end the University should seek the help of the British Council and of the United Nations Organisation.
(c) Laboratory equipment: English manufacturers of laboratory equip- ment have been accommodating to a degree beyond earlier anticipation. It is expected that equipment for the elementary sciences and for medicine, will be installed and ready for use by October of this year*, and that equip- ment for engineering laboratories will follow two or three months later.
(d) Admission Examination: To ensure a satisfactory standard of entrance, it has been arranged that the London University Matriculation This estimate has proved over sanguine and it is now improbable that new laboratory equipment can be installed before the early part of 1947.
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Board should hold its General Schools Examinations in Hong Kong in June and July of this year. The Matriculation Board has been most generous of help in allowing adjustments in its syllabuses to fit the special conditions in Hong Kong and in giving the Hong Kong University the benefit of its vast experience and of its admirable machinery of examinations.
(e) Staff: Already in Hong Kong are the Professor of Gynaecology with whom, for the carrying through of certain refresher courses for students who took their final medical examinations in China, are associated officiating professors of medicine and surgery, members of the Civil Medical Depart- ment of the Colony; a senior lecturer in Physics who is to be released from Civil Administration duties as soon as the University can use his services, and some Chinese assistants. The Professors of English and Economics have sailed for Hong Kong to reopen the University office and to make pro- vision for certain parts of the teaching. The professorships of Chinese, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Pathology, Surgery, Medicine, Civil Engineering and Education are vacant. The filling of these posts is left to the action of the University Council when it is reconstituted. Inquiries for suitable candidates are continuing in the United Kingdom. Attempts are being made to fill, at an early date, the vacant Lectureships in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology, History, and English, either in London or in China. The appointments will in the first case be for three years, the minimum time for which it is thought that men could be recruited. Long term appointments are left for the consideration of the appropriate Univer- sity body when it is reconstituted.”
76. We approve the action that has been taken by the Provisional Powers Committee as appropriate either to the restoration of the University or to its replacement by a series of professional schools. With the arrangements it has made and with the staff both existing and under recruitment, it should be possible in the last months of 1946* for a minimum of higher education to be offered to meet the insistent demands of the officials and public of the Colony. We are convinced that no further action can be taken until a decision is reached on our main recommendation concerning the future of the University. While there is uncertainty whether the University is to be restored or not, it is not possible to make additional arrangements for higher education in the Colony either in the sense of further restoration of the University or in the sense of preparing substitutes for the University such as professional schools. We would give as an example of the present dilemma the impossibility of recruiting senior staff for the University. Posts, both teaching and administrative, are now vacant. It is impossible to recruit for these posts on long-term appoint- ments until candidates can be informed of the kind of institution to which they would be appointed and the nature and quality of the work they would be asked to do. In the present acute shortage of academically qualified persons for higher education posts in the United Kingdom or overseas, it is obviously impossible, even if it were desirable, to find senior staff for short- term appointment in Hong Kong. Any further development however of higher education in Hong Kong, beyond the emergency arrangements already made, depends on the appointment of senior staff.
77. We are therefore unable to suggest any further action that can be taken, until a decision is reached on the main recommendation for the revival of the University. We wish to stress the urgency of the need for that decision in the interests of the Colony itself.
* The early months of 1947 now seems a more probable estimate.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.