Vice-President introduces liberal arts education at Higher Education Festival

17 Jun 2017

Vice-President introduces liberal arts education at Higher Education Festival

Prof Joshua Mok Ka-ho, Vice-President and Lam Man Tsan Chair Professor of Comparative Policy of Lingnan University, was invited by the South China Morning Post to deliver a presentation at the 2017 Higher Education Festival held on 17 June at InnoCentre.  Many students seeking information for their future studies attended the Festival.

 

Prof Mok, in his presentation on the topic “Liberal Arts Education ‧ Transformation For Life”,   pointed out that Lingnan University has been providing quality whole-person education over the years.   Its liberal arts education aims to cultivate a sense of civic duty in students as well as skills, competences and sensibilities that enable graduates to pursue their goals in a rapidly changing social, cultural and economic environment.  Forbes named Lingnan as the Top 10 Liberal Arts College in Asia.

 

Lingnan’s liberal arts education provides a broad-based interdisciplinary curriculum by giving students a firm knowledge foundation across different subjects taught in small class setting.  Students get a wide range of international exposure as the University has more than 180 exchange partners across 40 countries or regions, and over 80% of its undergraduates can go on exchange for a semester or participate in overseas summer programmes.  There are ample opportunities for students to participate in local and overseas internship programmes and service-learning experiences.

 

Besides, Lingnan is the only university in Hong Kong that provides 4-year full residency for undergraduates.  Hostel life and the unique Integrated Learning Programme give students valuable, out-of-class experiences and enhance their communication skills as well as critical thinking abilities.  As community service is an integral part of Lingnan’s education, Service-Learning is a graduate requirement for undergraduate studies. 

 

Prof Mok also pointed out that Lingnan will continue with the strategy of employing scholar-teachers who are not only dedicated to teaching, but also recognised for their research excellence.  Lingnan will forge closer ties with eminent universities and institutions to promote regional and international collaborations for research excellence and internationalisation of student learning.  Lingnan being a partner of the Centre for Global Higher Education led by UCL Institute of Education is a good example of such collaboration.   

 

Nowadays, many employers stress the desire to recruit employees who have a broad knowledge base and can engage in collaborative teams to identify solutions for increasingly complicated problems.  In this regard, Prof Mok suggested that Lingnan’s liberal arts education would equip students with knowledge and skills appropriate for the 21st century workplace.