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Students walk towards the library of Columbia university. General education programmes around the world tend to use texts by a broad range of authors and thinkers, from Confucius, Lao Tzu and Geling Yan to Plato, Aristotle, Isaac Newton and Jane Austen. Photo: Shutterstock
OpinionLetters

Letters | Coronavirus pandemic and protests mean Hong Kong and US need general education more than ever

  • General education exposes students to the world’s intellectual heritage across disciplines through core texts and is a space for curricular invention
  • During these challenging times, educators must have the freedom to innovate
Hong Kong national security law (NSL)
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The Association for Core Texts and Courses (ACTC) is an international liberal education association. For many years, many Chinese and Hong Kong scholars and teachers have attended ACTC curriculum-development events which emphasise the cultural, artistic and scientific texts of the East and West as essential tools – core texts – for a university education.

As the co-founder and retired executive director of ACTC, I had the privilege of working with many educators from Hong Kong General Education (GE) programmes for over 15 years, as well as those from the mainland.

GE occupies one to two years of a bachelor’s degree in US colleges and universities. World renowned universities – Columbia, the University of Chicago, and Yale – have GE programmes based on core texts, as do many colleges in the US and around the world.

As China’s central government moves to restrict and punish exercises of freedom in Hong Kong, it is important to recall it was Beijing itself that, in this century’s first decade, wanted to see general education instituted across Chinese universities. The reason was that Beijing looked to US universities and Chinese universities for innovation and invention. GE was missing in Chinese universities. In the US, GE is a place of curricular invention.

The reason GE has so many innovations is that all disciplines contribute to making the courses that go into it, and often there is departmental cooperation that would never take place without it. GE acts as an introduction for students to their own – and the rest of the world’s – intellectual heritage by using texts of authors such as Confucius, Lao Tzu, Plato, Aristotle, Shen Kuo, Isaac Newton, Jane Austen and Geling Yan.

Students harvest produce during a farming class, one of the courses under Chinese University’s general education programme, at a rooftop garden on campus in Sha Tin, Hong Kong, in April 2019. Photo: Xiaomei Chen
In both the US and Hong Kong, we see Covid-19, economic disruption and police brutality have caused protests for freedom against prejudice, fear and cultures of suppression. It is important to remember that education and educators are the most important alternatives to despair. This is especially true in general education which, by laying out the world’s arts and sciences – ancient to modern – provides a storehouse of possibilities which young people need to build the future.

How general education can sharpen Hong Kong’s edge

At stake in general education programmes and their inventiveness is intellectual and emotional freedom. It was important from 2000-2010 to build these programmes. It will be important going into the future to protect, preserve, develop and enhance them.

J. Scott Lee, retired executive director, Association for Core Texts and Courses, US

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