Professor Daniel Shek, Associate Vice President (Undergraduate Programme), PolyU.
PolyU is the first university in the world taking four Reimagine Education Awards for our leadership and Service-Learning education within two years, after winning two awards in 2017. The achievement signifies international recognition for PolyU’s efforts in promoting holistic development of university students.
Co-organised by Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and QS Quacquarelli Symonds, this global competition aims to award innovative higher education pedagogies enhancing student learning outcomes and employability, which has been regarded by the higher education sector as “Oscar in Education”. This year, the competition receives 1,000 innovative entries from prestigious institutions all over the world. The winners are selected by an extended panel of international judges for having outstanding achievements in terms of innovation, scalability and depth in 17 award categories.
Sustainability Category – Gold Award
PolyU is committed to foster sustainable development of students and the younger generation through education. Locally, PolyU firstly introduced Service-Learning (SL) subjects, which combine formal academic study and community service, as compulsory and credit-bearing subjects into the undergraduate curriculum. In a regional context, it establishes successful higher education SL pedagogies and delivers a wide variety of service across the region.
The award-winning project for “Sustainability” category is a Service-Learning subject entitled “Promotion of Children and Adolescent Development”, targeting at children and adolescents in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Hong Kong. The subject aims to enhance resilience and aspiration of service targets, as well as social responsibility of university students. Since its inception in 2013, this subject has been offered to over 1,000 PolyU students from different disciplines. Through this subject, students have served more than 3,000 migrant children in mainland China and 6,400 secondary school students in Hong Kong from deprived communities. Evaluation findings suggest that the subject significantly contributes to sustainable development of university students, their service targets and the communities. This successful service model will be replicated in Xian, China and other places in the One Belt One Road countries.
Ethical Leadership Category – Silver Award
The award-winning project for “Ethical Leadership” category is a leadership and intra-personal development subject entitled “Tomorrow’s Leaders” offered to more than 2,000 PolyU undergraduates every year since 2012/13. By applying evidence-based pedagogies to enable students to reflect on their development in both intrapersonal and interpersonal domains, the subject aims to cultivate essential qualities of ethical leadership among students, such as morality, integrity and leadership skills. The programme has benefited more than 10,000 PolyU students. The findings of different evaluative methods converge to support the positive impact of the subject on leadership and intrapersonal development in the students.
Professor Daniel Shek, Associate Vice President (Undergraduate Programme) of PolyU and the designer of the two winning subjects said, “PolyU has been leading in the areas of Service-Learning and leadership education both locally and regionally. We are encouraged by this international recognition and we shall strive for the best to nurture our university students to be socially responsible and ethical leaders in tomorrow’s world.”
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Press Contact: Professor Daniel Shek,
Associate Vice President (Undergraduate Programme), PolyU
Telephone: (852) 2766 5652
Email: [email protected]
