Academic Misconduct 學術失當

[skylee]

This is an interesting case IMHO.

What happened involved two universities in HK. One is the Chinese University (CUHK), which complained to the other university, Baptist University (HKBU), about one of the statements in a report called the Hong Kong Blue Book (香港藍皮書) published by a research centre of HKBU. It is the very same centre that published the controversial manual on national education called 中國模式國情專題教學手冊 that ignited a series of massive protests which resulted in the shelving of the whole education programme. Relevant thread -> National education 國民教育

The problematic statement is – “On the change of subjects, universities, secondary and primary schools were required to set up general education and national education, which not only squeezed and reduced the time dedicated to other subjects, but also in practice facilitated the intrusion of a multitude of universal values from the West. For example, the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s general education curriculum is sponsored by, and its materials written with the assistance of, a US fund. Its teaching direction has, in practice, been directed by that fund.”

So after an investigation, HKBU published a report, concluded that the director of the research centre had committed academic misconduct and the statement was unsubstantiated, formally apologised to CUHK, and removed the centre director (which was widely reported as “fired”). It is reported in today’s papers that the Blue Book is being withdrawn from bookstores.

It is interesting to note that the same research centre issued two publications that are so unacceptable by the community. And it seems that HKBU had not learnt from the first case.

[Outofin]

Didn't follow. A college with Baptist in its name got money from both China and the US and worked on the 2 opposite political fronts? Why does it have the power to require all schools in HK to teach their materials?

[skylee]

Two universities (not college, big difference in HK), two cases.

Case 1 - Baptist published a manual about national education. People hated it. Huge protests followed. The whole national education programme was shelved.

Case 2 - Baptist published a "Blue Book" saying that Chinese Univ (a different university) got money from US and its general education curriculum was directed by US. Chinese Univ protested. Baptist did an investigation and found that the "Blue Book" was wrong. Baptist apologised and sacked the writer, who was also the mastermind of the manual in case 1. The "Blue Book" is being withdrawn.

Baptist did not have the power to require all schools in HK to teach their materials. That manual was partly funded by the govt and was distributed for schools' "reference".

[Outofin]

I see. I guess I didn't catch the acronyms of the 2 universities when I read the first post. What are their reputation? I know 香港中文大学 is a world class university. Is HKBU any close to it? Maybe off-topic, but I'd appreciate if you can briefly explain how many universities HK has and what the top fews are.

[skylee]

There are 9 universities in HK. 7 are govt-funded and they are the better ones. One is a private university called 樹仁. One is the self-funding Open University. This list is relevant -> http://www.edb.gov.h...D=7001&langno=1

The top ones are HK univ (which is also the oldest), the HK Univ of Science and Technology (which is the youngest of them all - just 20 years), and the Chinese Univ of HK (which is the only one openly acknowledging it has a bilingual policy). Other than these three, two are formerly polytechnics, and two are formerly private colleges (Baptist and Lingnan).

Over here the university title is precious. Other than these nine, other higher education institutions cannot call themselves university, no matter how qualified they think they are. These include the Govt-funded Institute of Education and Academy of Performing Arts.

As to the rankings, they differ depending on which table you look. Let me see ...

In this chart HK universities are ranked 23, 33, 40 and 95 -> http://www.usnews.co...es-in-the-world (PS - this is in fact the QS ranking)

According to the THE ranking, there are 4 HK universities in the top 200 (35, 65, 124, 182) http://www.timeshigh...3/world-ranking

You can see HKBU is not one of them.

[frankwall]

Interesting topic. Still, I think in HK, given the historical situation, it should be relatively understandable that a lot of extra western values enter the education system at third level. Of course if its in violation of the rules, then something has to be done about it.