Non-credit-bearing programme design in General Education - Curriculum design and experience sharing on CIHE launching of integrated seminar and community involvement

Abstract

In Hong Kong, General Education is becoming an important feature of post-secondary education. All colleges/institutes/universities offer credit-bearing General Education courses as well as non-credit-bearing courses for their students. Non-credit-bearing Education serves as an advocate to credit-bearing General Education by providing the learning opportunities for students to explore wider experiences and cultivate their respective personalities. Through a discussion of CIHE’s experiences in designing and implementing the non credit-bearing General Education course – Integrated Seminar and Community Involvement, this article shares with readers the Institute’s directional path. Embodying the Catholic spirit of “teaching with love and care” in the General Education, the Institute adopts non-credit-bearing General Education as an important characteristic of Caritas with the objective of providing a “whole-person” education, and in doing so offers a fresh alternative to the current General Education system.

The non-credit-bearing General Education course – Integrated Seminar and Community Involvement exemplifies the Institute’s enthusiastic response to the mission of holistic education in which students are going to become the long-term well-being of our society. Since non-credit-bearing General Education always encompasses a wide range of fields, the Institute has faced difficulties in curriculum design and implementation. On the curriculum design level, the paper will demonstrate how the mission of the Institute can be introduced into the academic outcomes of the course and how the outcomes can be achieved under the nature of non-credit-bearing structure. On the implementation level, the Institute has been trying to bring students to make contribution to both the course and the society, especially through community services. Under the spirit of “love and care” of Caritas, CIHE is conscientiously making efforts to bring the best of both worlds – academic achievements and personality growth for our students.