TNAG-1072-FCO40-1322-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-1981 — Page 52

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4.1

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MAINTENANCE OF STANDARDS

In discussions with the President and senior members of the staff, CNAA sought information about any formal machinery charged with the setting and maintenance of standards of the courses, including their coherence and progression. It became clear that the design of courses was generally less rigorous and developed than in United Kingdom Polytechnics. Except for relatively minor co-ordination at Faculty level, reliance was placed on teachers at departmental level to set the appropriate standard of their courses. It seemed that, except in a particularly professional area such as Journalism, curricula were largely derivative from Hong Kong University, Hong Kong Polytechnic, United Kingdom and the United States curricula, blended with the traditions of Baptist College, and somewhat dominated by the balance of the staff at the time when the course was designed. The College claimed that this was a positive approach to gain international currency for the awards of Baptist College. Assessment was primarily a matter for individual teachers, and only in two areas (Civil Engineering and Social Work) were there External Examiners.

It was clear that curricula were both constrained and somewhat randomly influenced by the high turnover of staff with some loss of coherence resulting from these pressures; curricula were further constrained in that teaching at the appropriate academic level would be possible within the available resources. It was normal to define a compulsory core of study which was felt to be essential, and which staff would generally be available to teach, and to have a fairly wide range of electives. All of these latter courses might not be available in a particular year for staffing reasons. In spite of the best efforts of staff, it was generally accepted by the President that there was some impoverishment.

The Dean of Academic Affairs made it clear that the responsibility for balance and progression lay clearly at the departmental level where Heads of Department were expected to convene appropriate departmental meetings. While this worked well in general, it was stated that there were a few Heads who did not welcome much participation on the part of the staff. The requirement to set up a Departmental Committee in connection with a new course proposal had been introduced two years ago, and most departments endeavoured to conform to College guidelines. It had not been the practice until very recently for Minutes of departmental meetings to be a formal requirement, although many departments did run their meetings on a formal basis. It was learned that, while practice had not been uniform in the past, such