Apart from its quality focus, the report also commended PolyU for "the clear sense of its vision and mission", its "deep relationship with industry" as well as its various innovative and practical approaches used to facilitate student learning.
The panel commended PolyU for "the integration of professional practice in the design of its curricula with an appropriate balance of theoretical and practical knowledge". It also gave highly favourable comments to PolyU in regard to its emphasis on Work-Integrated Education (WIE) as an institutional strategy to foster students' capacity for applying theory to practice, and the effective planning, implementation and support for WIE across the institution.
A pioneer among Hong Kong universities in implementing Outcome-Based Education (OBE) and an institutional Learning Outcomes Assessment Plan (LOAP), PolyU has won the Panel's commendation for its "well-grounded conceptual frameworks for implementing OBE and LOAP", as well as the "widespread awareness and support" by the PolyU community for the development and use of learning outcomes within course, programmes, and student support units.
PolyU President Professor Timothy W. Tong said, "PolyU aspires to become the leading university offering application-oriented programmes in the region and pledges to provide a holistic education with a strong professional focus for our students. We are glad that the Panel has acknowledged our endeavours in providing students with a ‘seamless student-centred environment' to enable them to succeed in learning."
The Panel also noted that the faculty members of PolyU are supported by "well-established institutional structure for promoting quality teaching" and a wide range of effective staff development activities offered by its Educational Development Centre.
Professor Tong said, "It is important to ensure a nurturing environment for our staff. Indeed, much of our achievement can be attributed to our dedicated staff members who always embrace quality and innovative teaching."
Professor Tong expressed his sincere gratitude to the panel. He said, "We are strongly encouraged by the Panel's commendations on our good practices. The Audit findings will make a valuable contribution to our continuous quest for quality assurance and enhancement."
The University will also act upon the advice of the Panel and further improve its QA system and processes in some areas. These include: deepening the culture of critical enquiry across campus, developing an institution-wide strategy for benchmarking academic programmes, refining the existing Performance Indicators to align more closely with the desired learning outcomes, and exploring strategies other than surveys to collect student feedback.
In regard to the Panel's recommendation for PolyU's College of Professional and Continuing Education (CPCE), the University responded that "it is now in the process of reviewing the roles and relationships of the University Council, Senate and QA Committees relative to CPCE Council, Academic Board and QA committees".
The QAC Audit Exercise for PolyU was conducted in the middle of 2010. By then the University Management under the leadership of Professor Tong, who took office in January 2009, was also in a period of transition. With the new management fully in place, the University is now well poised to chart new course and strive for the next level of excellence.
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Mr Wilfred Lai
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