Bulletin Special Supplement Jun 1965

C5. Furthermore, in a new university where so much is in the melting-pot, any proposals which we make may be rendered impractical or irrelevant by the decisions tha t are being made about a multitude of problems almost every day. A l l we can hope is to stimulate thought and experiment about a subject that lies at the very heart of the university's raison d'etre. P ART I I . T E A C H I N G M E T H O DS C6. We began by sending round a questionnaire to the chairmen o f departments of the three colleges, most of who m went to considerable trouble to answer our questions, and we should like to take this opportunity to thank them for their cooperation. We give in Appendix A a report summarising the replies. C7. We then asked ourselves whether we could claim to be satisfied w i th the type of student produced by the colleges , and we agreed that there are two factors which should cause us disquiet:— (a) While many of our students do well in further study and research, they do not seem to be readily accepted by local industry or commerce for positions appropriate to their training, and many of them either go in for school teaching or take jobs for which their education seems extravagant and irrelevant. (b) Members of staff frequently complain that their students suffer f r om two faults, the one that they are too passive, contented to sit through a lecture without asking questions, able only to learn off by heart what they rea d or hear, and the other that they think in watertight compartments and cannot transfer their knowledge in one field to assist their work in another. C8. We than asked ourselves the following questions:— (a) Does education in the middle schools emphasise learning by heart? Do teachers expect pupils to listen all the time? Does the intense competition for entry into schools and universities, w i th its attendant system of excessive examination , demand too much of pupils so tha t they have neither the time nor the energy to do mor e than learn what they are given by heart? ( b ) D o e s the university perpetuate this tradition by having too many lectures and too few small discussion groups, by insisting on too many examinations, by emphasising the department to o much? (c) Does the necessity for a sound knowledge of English seriously affect a student's progress? A nd what about the proble m of Mandarin and Cantonese? (d) Is the load on the teaching staff so heavy that they have the time neither to think systematically about their teaching methods nor to give to students the individual attention that they need? C9. (a) and ( b) We felt that our answers to these must be yes. We do not mean to criticise the schools, for the situation caused by this intense competition is not within their control. Our concern is whether the university is doing anything to counteract this tradition. The replies to our questionnaire make it clear tha t the lecture is the chief instrument of teaching, and we are convinced that there is too much emphasis upo n examinations. An excessive diet of lectures and examinations is bound to encourage students in their habit s of listening passively and then trying to learn off by heart all they have heard, so that they may reproduce for the examination what they consider to be the correct answer. (c) I t is obvious that the lack of a good working knowledge of English i s bound to slow down a student's progress in an institution where so many of the books used at present are written in English, and many of our students do no t possess an adequate knowledge. Our impression is, however , that the Mandarin-Cantonese problem does not cause trouble to students after their first years , as they can at least understand the other dialect well enough by then. There is, however, the question whether the demands of English do not slow down students' reading of their own language, to which we are not in a position to give an answer. (d) T o this question the answer is more difficult. So much depends upo n the individual and the differing demands upon his time. But we are agreed on three things, one that a load of three courses per term is excessive and that some of our teachers are already carrying a heavier load than this, two that the teacher's daily time-table is so chopped up, and the vacations are so short and so occupied w i th other tasks (e.g., marking degree and matriculation examination papers) that it is very difficult to find long periods of time when he may concentrat e without distractions on academic work, and three that the next few years, when the whole physical, administrativ e and academic structure of the universit y has to be built up, are going to make very heavy demands on all members of staff. We concluded, therefore, that our answers to all these questions must be yes, even if there are exceptions to the general pictur e drawn, and in the following paragraphs are some o f the suggested remedies which we discussed. C10. L e c t u r e s ( a) The number of lectures given should be cut down. Staff giving lectures should continually ask themselve s if their lecture is meeting a real need. Above all, every effort should be made to see that enoug h of the necessary bosks and periodicals are in the librar y and that students possess the recommended textbooks (see sectio n 15). This would at least remove th e necessity for the lecture that has to be delivered in order that students may be informed 11