TNAG-1072-FCO40-1322-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-1981 — Page 37

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3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5

It is clear, notwithstanding the identification of comparator courses, that CNAA has been asked to make comparisons of standards in a situation where there are bound to be certain differences in aims, structure and teaching approach; in practice those differences often proved to be considerable and the exercise had to be adjusted so as to take account of the intention of government in those cases where precise comparisons could not be made. The approach of the CNAA team was therefore in no way mechanistic; indeed much of the high level expertise which the team brought to Hong Kong would have been used wastefully and unprofitability in any such constrained exercise. Thus, CNAA has sought to assess the comparibility of the courses on the basis of the quality of the students at the point of entry, the resource support for the courses in terms of both staffing and facilities, and the overall educational experience of the students by way of acquired knowledge and intellectual development by the end of year 4 or year 5, as appropriate. CNAA has also drawn as necessary on the experience of the College in offering the programmes which are now being superceded.

The formal discussions in the Colleges were supplemented by numerous ad hoc meetings to enlarge on particular points, also by meetings with students and, in the particular case of engineering, by a meeting with representatives of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers.

It was always envisaged by CNAA that the task which it had agreed to carry out would prove to be complex, and that its concern with major areas of work in the Colleges could not and should not be divorced from the future which the Colleges perceived for themselves, their academic development programmes, their procedures for resource allocation and for academic decision making, the environment for students, the quality of the staff and the totality of the resource support in relation to the courses offered. In both Baptist College and Lingnan College CNAA has explored those matters in depth along lines similar to those by which it makes such evaluations in the United Kingdom.

In summary, the wider institutional evaluation referred to above consisted of an assessment of the ability of the colleges to express clearly their goals, and both within and outwith the individual courses to meet those goals and to set and maintain academic standards. It is only in the context of such an overall appraisal that CNAA is prepared to declare the existence or absence of comparability.