ENG-1989 — Page 165

EDUCATION

All the college's degree courses are carefully planned to meet the needs of the community and are academically accredited by the CNAA. They all share the common objective of educating students to become well balanced in academic achievement, professional competence and character development. Each course is therefore designed to be broad- based and comprises two essential components - liberal education and vocational prepara- tion. Emphasis is also placed on the development of communication skills. New degree courses in the areas of Translation, Humanities, Systems Science, and Human Resources Management are now being planned, for introduction by 1990–91. For academic qual- ity assurance, external examiners from home and abroad are appointed to each course.

Teaching and research in the college are organised around its three faculties and one school, which includes 22 departments altogether. They are the Faculty of Arts (Departments of Chinese Language and Literature, English Language and Literature, Music and Fine Arts, Religion and Philosophy, Language Centre); Faculty of Science (Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Computing Studies, Mathematics, Physics); Faculty of Social Sciences (Departments of Communication, Education Studies, Geography, History, Social Work, Sociology), and School of Business (Departments of Accountancy, Administrative Information Management, Economics, Finance, Human Resources Man- agement, Marketing). All full-time undergraduate courses of the college require three years of study, and students are admitted on the results of the Hong Kong Advanced Level (HKAL) examination. In 1989-90, applications for admission continued to exceed by far the number of available places with an average of nine qualified applicants to every place.

In October, the total full-time student enrolment was 2 943, with a breakdown of: Arts 476, Business 845, Science 649, and Social Sciences 973. While 100 per cent of the first-year students were on degree courses, the number of students on degree courses for all years constituted 84 per cent of the total enrolment. Additionally, there were 12 students enrolled in the MPhil programme; 65 students enrolled in a special full-time two-year course preparing them to sit for the HKAL examination in music, and 467 taking part-time 'conversion courses' which provide opportunities for past honours diplomates of the college to upgrade their qualification to that of a Bachelor's Degree. The teaching staff strength stood at 224, with the majority of them holding higher degrees from overseas institutions. Senior academic and administrative staff are recruited through international advertisement.

Apart from the full-time regular student body, the college catered for some further 40 000 students through the 400 part-time courses offered by its Division of Continuing Education. These courses cover a broad range of cultural, vocational and professional interests to meet the demands for education from people in employment, and are held in the evening using the campus and off-campus centres.

The college's main library has a unique integrated computer system covering all the major library services. The collection of books increased to 222 000 during the year. There is also a branch library which holds a special collection of research materials on contemporary China between 1949 and 1976. Research activities have continued to grow significantly. In addition to research grants obtained from the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee through open bidding, the support allocated by the college in the current year was more than double that of the previous year. There were also increases in academic exchanges with institutions overseas and in China.

With the opening for use of two more new buildings and a sports centre, the entire campus redevelopment project on the Waterloo Road site nears completion. One of the new buildings houses the Science Faculty and its specialist facilities, while the other

133

Page 165Page 166