TNAG-1072-FCO40-1322-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-1981 — Page 131

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4.

4.1

4.4

4.5

4.6

THE AIMS OF THE COURSES

The Baptist College faces a number of dilemmas in developing the subject of Civil Engineering as a discipline in the College.

(i) Any course at the College must of necessity come

of very mixed parentage, which makes it difficult to have a consistent approach to course development. The staff are Chinese, many come from mainland China and the approach adopted to the subject and to its teaching displays some of its Chinese heritage. The educational system in the Colony is

(ii)

substantially a British system. Lastly the College is an American foundation, retains links with the USA and in many respects resembles an American Liberal Arts college.

The College's aspiration in Civil Engineering is to offer a degree level course comparable to UK or USA universities, and its experience is in offering an academically oriented course. The Government's policy is to fund two-year post Form VI courses which will provide a vocational or professional qualification. The College is therefore attempting within a three year structure the difficult task of providing both a two year vocational training course for higher technicians and a three year course which is substantially academic in character but gaining full exemption from CEI part II.

The staff at the Baptist College are not experienced in developing a course in an integrated fashion to meet specific aims. The courses have been constructed on the basis of an examination of university calendars tempered by the subject specialisms of the staff and have not been designed to take into account the needs of Hong Kong.

The Baptist College would benefit from outside advice on course development. Someone from a United Kingdom Polytechnic could be of help.

The Polytechnic staff are more experienced in course development but they face the problem of having a diverse range of work. The Polytechnic will have to determine whether it wishes all or some of the staff in the Civil and Structural Engineering department to develop professionally to the extent that their staff can support a degree programme if such is their intention. This does not mean that the lower level technician work is less important, but rather that the staff development needs for the two groups of courses are different.