SLS-3b4.3 The First 4YUG Cohort - Rwanda - Effective Collaboration in Service

The first trip to Rwanda and our subsequent collaboration taught us a lot of things.  

First of all, we had heard that we would be going to a community center for youths, run by African Enterprises; and that they want us to build a computer laboratory and run some computer classes for the children.  This we would have been very happy to do, since we have had some experience with that in other places such as Gansu in China and Cambodia. As time progresses, however, AE Rwanda convinced us that we could make greater contributions spending at least part of the time training their staff on using the Internet, particularly social networks like Facebook, so that they can do a better job serving the people of Rwanda. Once we arrived, there were other discoveries - their computer network was in such a poor state that part of our team spent several days fixing their computer network, and installing a Virtual Private Network for them.  And we spent several days training their staff in using the VPN as well as the Internet. As a result, AE staff can communicate over the network over the whole country much more efficiently.  For that AE was very grateful.  They told us that other overseas team usually bring them gifts of “things”; buy we brought their people skills that they can use.  

Thought these experiences, we learnt that in order to be really helpful, we have to be willing to listen, and to serve in ways that people really need it. Of course, in order to meet a real need, we have to have good, practical skills in the first place.  We were very happy that we brought some very good students this time - students with both good skills and great attitude.  We have to change their assignments so many times, often asking them to do things that they have not learnt before.  They then have to improvise and learn quickly something that they have to do or teach in the following day.  And our students proved equal to the task!

We observed a number of vivid examples of what AE meant, when they told us that sometimes the service provided by well-meaning people, often at great cost, do not really address a real need.  One day, we happened to pass by a computer laboratory of a local university, right next to the primary school where we were working.  There were ~40 computers that were set up neatly on clean and tidy work benches.  For 3 days we could not see anyone using those computers at any time.  Those computers were donated by some well-meaning overseas donors. For some reason, they were not being used.  Based on past experience, the most probably reason is that they university does not know how to make use of them; perhaps they do not have teachers who can teach computer classes.  It is also possible that they were afraid the student might misuse or damage the computers. The sad things, in a few years time, the computer would still be brand new, but have become obsolete and unusable.  In the mean time, no one is benefiting from the computers put together at great cost.  

AE believes that it is the people that is important.  They are very keen on helping their people to set up co-operatives, to learn to start small businesses, to do the accounting, to plant passion fruit, to run a public toilet, to raise bees, to set up a butcher’s shop, to build fish farms, to set up kindergartens, ...  The strategy is not to give the co-operatives a lot of money - AE does not have a lot of money to hand out anyway. But AE is training them on the necessary skills to manage money and to run the businesses - something that is much more valuable in the long run.     

We believe in the same thing.  Hence our values align, and our strengths complementary.  AE Rwanda has built up a strong network and cultivated a self-reliant and cooperative attitude.  We can bring skills and technology that empower the youths and villagers, building on the foundation that AE Rwanda has developed.  This is proving to be a very successful partnership because we share the same values, yet each side is contributing something that the other side needs.  

More of this story will follow.  

SLS-3b4.2 The First 4YUG Cohort - Rwanda - Computer Laboratory for Center of Champions at Rwamagana

African Enterprises Rwanda runs a school, Center for Champions, in Rwamagana, about an hour east of Kigali. It has 500 students in its primary school for street kids. Some of these kids are in their 20s yet they have not been schooled, often due to the upheaval following the Genocide. The school runs a fast track primary curriculum in which students complete the 6-year primary curriculum in 3 years. It has designated a room for a computer laboratory but it has no computers yet, by the time we arrived in 2013.  

We raised some funds among our friends and bought 10 computers for the laboratory.  We also bought a server, a router, 2 network switches, and hundreds of meters of network cable.  The computers and cables were physically set up in an hour, because we had planned and prepared in great detail ahead of time. We had a connection diagram prepared and put it up on the board as soon as we started, and everybody knew what to do.  We set up an e-library of hundreds of useful e-books on the server. Again, all the e-books had been collected and written in Hong Kong.  All we had to do was to install them in the server. Now the school can teach with its own local area network, even though it has no access to the Internet (it was too expensive at the time).  

(In 2013, Internet service was very expensive and SIM cards were practically impossible to buy.  The situations has improved tremendously since then.  By 2020 SIM cards are fairly inexpensive and affordable. However, coverage is still weak or non-existent in many places outside the main cities. Therein lies many important lessons for service-learning.  We need one type of solution for Rwanda in 2013 which does not depend on the Internet.  In 2020, we can employ solutions that can work with weak coverage. We really have to have intimate and relevant knowledge of the local need in order to develop appropriate solutions for the local context.  We also have to evolve as the local situation evolves - what works one day may not work the following day.  Knowing the history and having a long term relationship certainly helps.  And a lot more.  This is all partly why we work so hard to cultivate a long term relationship with partners and work on a site for a long time.)

And then we ran 3 days of workshops for the ~10 teachers and ~30 selected students.  We taught the teachers basic computer network concepts, how to set up their own LAN, and how to make use of the resources in the e-library for teaching.  We also taught the students, many of whom had not toughed a computer before, how to make and edit movies, as a way to teach them some common IT skills, and motivate them to learn.  We seemed to have succeeded - many of them refuse to leave even after the class was finished.  

In the evening, we have finished all the lessons.  While we were cleaning up, the electrical power went out.  Fortunately, we came prepared.  We quickly whipped out 2 solar power charged LED packs so that we can continue to work.  It feels great to be given a chance to demonstrate a practical use of the solar panels.  The brief-case-sized solar panel pack consists of a solar panel, battery, and LED lights.  They were designed and assembled for use in another project in Cambodia just before we came to Rwanda.   

(In 2015, we will start switching to the installation of solar panels to generate electricity as a major project in Rwanda and elsewhere.  We will cover that story somewhere else.) 

Both the head mistress of the school, and the leaders of AE thank us earnestly and beseech us to come back.  It it gratifying to know that our efforts are appreciated. And we have been coming back to Rwanda every year until the corona-virus hit in 2020.  

SLS-3b4.1 The First 4YUG Cohort - Rwanda - The Teacher is not Overhead

As soon as we landed in Rwanda in July 2013, we tried to learn as much as possible what Rwanda is really like, how AEE operates, how our planned projects can be carried out,   how much can we realistically achieve given the circumstances, where can we purchase needed supplies, how do we actually travel to the site, etc.  We did ask a lot of these questions before coming here, and received some information and photos.  But it was difficult to plan in the level of detail that we really need.  It is partly because of the poor telephone links and Internet connections between Rwanda and Hong Kong, but also because of the fundamental differences between our perceptions, understanding of each other and what each of us want from the collaboration. For example, we did not really know the condition of the guest house where we are staying for the duration of the project.  It turned out to be perfect for our needs - basic, but clean and quite, with plenty of space to work; but we could not be sure of that before we came, not because we didn’t try.  Within hours of arriving in the country, we learned so much about life in Rwanda just by walking around the neighbourhood and visiting the local wet market.  

We could have but did not send an advance team here for a pre-visit ahead of the actual project.  It was mainly because of the great cost of travelling here, in terms of time, finances, and the logistics.  Flying time alone is at least 16 hours.  The layover in between  (particularly at Doha) can be as much as 12 hours, partly because we wish to reduce the cost of the plane ticket.  Hence making a one-way trip last for up to 28 hours.  We did not end up getting punished much on this particular project because of the lack of a pre-visit to gain first hand knowledge and direct negotiations — because of a number of reasons. AEE is such a wonderful, accommodating, resourceful well-connected and experienced partner. We had quite a bit of experience with other projects earlier. We prepared well.  Our team of teams are exceptionally capable and have a great attitude.  Above all we had been fortunate.  But a lot of things could have gone wrong and caused the project to fail or some disaster to happen.  It is a risk that we vow never to take again.  From then on, a pre-visit to learn about the site, partners, transportation, provisions, risks, face-to-face meetings to take the measure of the partner and let them get to know us, …, must be done for a new site or new project.  We have a responsibility to the students as well as the university to make the project as successful and as risk-free as possible.  

This lack of a pre-visit and the subsequent commitment to make one is part of a lesson that we have learned and a fundamental change in understanding in our minds of what service-learning is about.  For a long time, we think of service-learning as something that the students do, that they are the focus of attention.  The teachers, the assistants, the infrastructure are all there to facilitate the students’ work.  What the teachers and assistants do are the “overhead” that must be minimised.  That remains the perception of many people involved with service-learning, including, very importantly, many funders and administrators.  

We have gradually realised that this picture is far from complete and can actually be quite damaging.  Part of the reason that we did not send one or two staff members to Rwanda to scout out the site and make preparations is because we wanted to save the money and the time. So that we can spend as much as possible the funding that we have secured on the students’ expenses, rather than the staff. If we skip the pre-visit by the staff, we may be able to send more students on the actual project.  That is, in fact, what many donors demand and continue to demand.  Often they are willing to fund the students’ expenses but not that of the staff.  And often the administrators take the same view.  

However, we have been learning again and again, that the pre-visit by the professors and assistants is critical to the success of the actual project by the students.  Without the local knowledge and careful preparation, we may be taking too much risk on many aspects: whether the need is really there, whether the proposed solution is appropriate and feasible, whether the partners truly understands what we are planning to do, whether the site is safe, whether the students are prepared appropriately, …  And we need to send the appropriate staff to accompany the students, to guide them in identifying the need and the solution, to teach the students just-in-time when they most need it and appreciate it, to help them reflect on their experiences when it is fresh and the feeling raw.   The pre-visit, the teacher, the assistants and their work is not “overhead”.  These are critical, core to the success of the service-learning project carried out by the students, and the students’ learning.  Students generally do not automatically learn from their experiences, otherwise there is not need for them to attend structured teaching at the university.  In fact, the professors are the key to the initial success, continuity, continued improvement, overall sustainability of the program.  They are the carrier of the spirit and vision of the program. Students come and go.  It is the teachers and the staff who stay and carry the flag.  This is a key message that we have to convey.

SLS-3b4 The First 4YUG Cohort - Rwanda

In the summer of 2013, we took a team to Rwanda for the first time.  The germination of our first African project had actually started several years earlier. We broke out of Hong Kong, taking a team to Mainland China in 2006. We started planning in 2009, and subsequently took the first team out of Greater China to Cambodia in 2010.  At roughly the same time when we went to Cambodia, we developed a plan for a project in Uganda, but could not find the necessary funding to turn it into reality, and ended up having to  to say sorry to our partner.  Unexpectedly, around 2012, we were offered funding from senior management for an internationalization project targeting Africa.  We quickly found a lead linking us initially to Malawi through the NGO African Evangelical Enterprise.  After some discussions, AEE recommended Rwanda instead and we agreed. 

Why are we so keen to go to Africa?  Firstly, we have learned from our own experiences as well as others that we can make a greater impact where the need is greater; and in general the need in Africa is greater than most other continents.  This is particularly true in sub-Saharan Africa, where many of the poorest countries in the world are.  Secondly, students also learn more where the cross-cultural challenge is greater; and the people and culture in Africa differ from ours arguably more than most other places in the world.  Many Asian countries have strong cultural links with China, while European and American influence is strong in Hong Kong. Hence there is some degree of familiarity with these continents, which cannot be said about most of Africa. Unfortunately, Africa is also far away, imposing great financial and logistical costs.  Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa are also politically volatile.  So we face many challenges on the way to Africa. 

Rwanda, it turns out, offers a lot of very pertinent lessons.  It is really as poor as we imagine. It does not have much natural resources. And it has suffered much from colonisation.  In 1994, it went through a horrible genocide in which 800,000 people died without 100 days while the whole world watched.  However, it has also been politically stable since around year 2,000.  The government is relatively free of corruption, running the economy fairly effectively, keeping the country physically clean and safe, and consequently enjoying the confidence of the people. It has worked hard on reconciling the antagonists and having a lot of success. It makes us wonder how it does that, and what we can learn from them. Perhaps most importantly, in African Evangelical Enterprise we found a great partner.  Their core strategy is to organise thousands of self-help groups, train the members of the groups in basic business skills, and to start small businesses together.  We are eager to find out how it does that, and how we can work with them. 

After many months of studies, negotiations, and preparations, we took 20 students to fly to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, via Doha in Qatar and Entebbe in Uganda. To save on the budget, we endured a 10 hour layover at the old, freezingly-cold airport at Doha going in and coming back.  We even had Professor Walter Yuen, who instigated the whole Service-Learning enterprise when he was Vice-President for Academic Affairs in 2010, in our company.  When our plane flew over the Arabian Peninsula, crossed the Red Sea and then flew over Ethiopia on the way to Uganda, it was an almost spiritual moment for us.  It is said to be where modern humans originated.  Yet it is generally perceived to be mysterious, at least slightly dangerous, full of excitement to be experienced.  Enbebbe, the brief stop in Uganda, is famous for the daring rescue by Israeli commandos of hostages on an Air France airplane hijacked by Palestinian terrorists in 1976.  It is yet another connection to momentous events in the world.  When the plane flew over the as-big-as-an-ocean Lake Victoria, it was another dramatic moment.  Our first trip to Rwanda opens another chapter in our service-learning adventure. 

SLS-3b3 The First 4YUG Cohort - Water Resource Mapping in Indonesia

Indonesia is the world’s largest island country, with 17,000 islands, but only the 14th largest by land area, at 1,904,569 square kilometres.  It is the world’s 4th most populous, with 267 million people, and the most populous Muslim-majority country.  Yet the number of Christians, at 11%, is greater than many Christian-majority nations.  It is also home to Borobudur, the world’s largest Buddhist temple, built in the 9th century. Such is the fascinating diversity of Indonesia. 

Duta Wacana Christian University (DWCU) is a university in Yogyakarta on Java Island, only about 30 kilometres from Borobudur, and 300 kilometres south-east of Jakarta.  They run strong community service program through which DWCU students spend months living and developing community projects in rural village communities around Yogyakarta each summer.  In the summer of 2013, a team from PolyU went to Yogyakarta to work with the DMCU team as well as a team from the Australian National University.  

The PolyU team was led by Mr. Joseph Lam of the Department of Land Survey and Geographic Information (LSGI), and supported by Ms. Renee Leung of the Office of Service-Learning.  The team specialises in land and resource management.  It went around the village mapping out water resources (in the form of rivers and lakes) and their quality, providing much needed information to assist the villagers in utilising their natural resources for development. We were informed that maps with such detail and information for the region did not exist before.  

During the project our students stay with the families in the village, sleeping in their houses, eating what they eat, and living as they do.  It gives our students a most valuable experience.  Not only is it radically different from the urban living that they are familiar with, it gives them an authentic taste of a foreign culture.  Even though our students do not speak the local Javanese language and the villagers speak neither Chinese of English, they can communicate through the Indonesian students from DMCU.   

Through this project we experience many of the joys and challenges of working with partners in foreign countries.  DMCU is strongly committed and experienced in community service.  They have very good connections to the local government and village headers, paving and smoothing the way for our team to getting to know the village and local needs quickly.  Hence our team can work very efficiently and effectively.  DMCU can also make the local transportation and accommodation arrangements for us, saving us a lot of work and uncertainty.  With such a strong partner, risks also becomes much more manageable, even though the land is strange and unfamiliar to us. 

However, DMCU having a strong experience and mature program also poses challenges for us.  Their program requires their students to stay at the village for 2 months, with hundreds of students spread over some 20 teams scattered over many villages.  They would like our students to match their students as much as possible, in the duration of stay, spread over the many villages, nature of work, etc.  However, our team has only 20 students, and our schedule is such that we can only stay for about 2 weeks.  Even lengthy and rigorous negotiations could not create a complete satisfactory result for both sides.   Our program is also a credit-bearing course with specific learning objectives and assessment with real impact on the students’ academic records.  But DWCU’s program is much less structured in academic learning and deliverables, which create different expectations and quite different working styles between the two sets of students.  As a result, Hong Kong students tend to consider their Indonesian counterparts as too laid-back, while the Indonesians consider the HongKongers as too fast-paced.  

And then there are the Australians.  It turns out the students from Australian National University (ANU) are graduate students in anthropology.  The have only a small number of students.  The nature of their work is more of a field study than community service.  That introduce yet more divergent dimensions.  In the end, the Australian team work more or less independently from the PolyU team.  

Despite all the challenges, our students had a very fruitful and enjoyable experience.  They achieved their objectives in mapping out valuable water resources for the villages.  Their maps, proposals, presentations, and the talks that they arranged for the villages were highly appreciated.  They collaborated with their fellow Indonesian students, and interact with the Australians.  They learned much about different cultures and ways of life, and found the overall experience highly satisfying.  We found DWCU a great partner and we have been collaborating with them ever since.

SLS-3b2 The First 4YUG Cohort - Youth Development for Migrant Children

Mainland China has been developing very rapidly for several decades.  In 1980, 20% of the population lived in the cities.  Forty years later, in 2020, it has increased to 60%.  A lot of rural areas have been turned urban.  A huge number of people have also moved from the countryside to the cities.  Some of them permanently, but many of them are migrant workers who do not have resident status and privileges in the city.  They left behind a huge number of “left behind” children who grow up in the care of relatives, rather than their own parents.  They also bring along some of their children to the cities.  Even then, these children in the cities may not receive proper care.  That may be because their parents are hard pressed to earn a living, for themselves as well as the relatives back home.  Many children cannot attend the regular city schools because they do not have the same privileges as regular residents of the cities. The schools that they end up attending are often poorly funded, equipped and staffed.  

Professor Daniel Shek’s team has developed a SL subject that addresses this need with the theme of adolescent development.  It aims to build up the underprivileged children’s competence, resilience, and aspiration.  They have been sending many teams to the big cities such as Shanghai and Hangzhou for many years.  Typically the teams organise day camps and tutorial classes of music, dancing, science, English and mathematics to build up a sense of achievement and further develop their potential.  On these projects, PolyU students typically also collaborate with students from renowned Mainland universities. 

Through these projects, our students also get to see and experience the changes in the country up close.  On the one hand, the rapid development has brought untold riches to many, as evidenced by the modernisation and wealth in coastal cities such as Shanghai and Hangzhou.  On the other hand, the rapid development has incurred real human costs, as evidenced by the situation of the migrant workers and their children.  

Many of these projects in Mainland China have been partially funded by the Ministry of Education of the Chinese government.  The program encourages exchange between university students from Hong Kong with those from the Mainland.  Hence these SL projects in Mainland China achieves multiple purposes.  On the one hand, our students learn social responsibility through addressing certain social needs on the Mainland.  On the other hand, it enhances mutual understanding between the two sets of university students.  

 

SLS-3b1 The First 4YUG Cohort - First Subjects - Cantonese as Second Language

A Caucasian teaching Chinese Students to teach Cantonese to Refugees as a Second Language.  

The vast majority (92%) of the population of Hong Kong are ethnic Chinese, speaking either Cantonese or Mandarin (Putonghua).  There remains a comparatively small but still quite sizeable number of people who may not speak Chinese, which makes life difficult for them.  These include expatriates, ethnic minorities, foreign domestic workers and refugees / asylum seekers.  Expatriates are typically professionals, well educated and can generally the care of themselves.  Many ethnic minorities who grow up in Hong Kong do speak Cantonese, or at least have a lot of opportunities to learn it. 

Foreign domestic workers are often not well educated and typically paid a low wage;  but they at least have a job.  Refugees and asylum seekers are in the most dire situations.  They are not allowed to work, and for a long time, the children were not even allowed to receive education.  Hence a colleague from the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies designed a SL subject to help to make their stay in Hong Kong more tolerable, by helping them to speak Cantonese.  Why is there such a need in the first place? Who are these people? Why are these people here in Hong Kong?  What difficulties do they encounter?  How does the lack of proficiency in Cantonese affect them?  How does one help them overcome these difficulties?  How can we understand them better, and make their lives more tolerable? What can we learn about social justice through this experience?  These are obvious objectives that the subject can help to address.  

The fact that this subject is proposed and taught by a Caucasian, Dr. John Wakefield, is an indication of the complexity of globalisation.  Most Americans are not surprised when they encounter a Chinese-looking person speaking perfect English in America - they may assume that this person is ethnic Chinese but born in America, which is increasingly common. However, they may be surprised when they find out that this Chinese-looking person came recently from Hong Kong  On the other hand, many people anywhere in the world, including Hong Kong, would probably be surprised to find a Caucasian-looking person speaking prefect Cantonese.  Even if they know that this person has been living in Hong Kong for a long time.  Why is there such a big difference in expectations?  Why is it that a Chinese in America is expected to learn English, but a Caucasian in Hong Kong is not expected to learn Cantonese?  What is the cause of this discrepance?  And how does that affect the way we deal with such and similar situations?  These are exactly some of the issues that we hope to tackle through international, cross-cultural service-learning subjects and projects.  

The students have to go through lectures and workshops to prepare themselves, including the learning of the formal notations and methods for the pronunciation of Cantonese. Even though most of them are native speakers of Cantonese, most have not been trained to teach Cantonese. Hence the needed training in formal methods, Then they have to design their own lessons and activities to teach the refugees Cantonese.   The classes were set up through partnership with an NGO, Christian Action. In particular their centre at Chungking Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui.  During the lectures and workshops the students were noticeably passive and lacking in enthusiasm.  This worried us quite a lot.  However, as soon as our students started interacting with the refugees, they came alive.  They ended up doing more than was originally planned, devising additional activities to engage with the refugees.  The highlight was a presentation by the refugees to a group of students in one of the elite secondary schools in Hong Kong.  The refugees were greatly moved by their reception at the secondary school, and the efforts that our students made to make the event happen.  Our students were also obviously touched by the interaction with the refugees.  

This phenomenon is going to repeat again and again in many service-learning subjects.  No matter how hard the teachers try, to help the students understand that the preparations are needed so that they can carry out the services they are looking forward to, students find it difficult to be motivated during the learning session.  The teachers try different methods, showing photographs and movies of the target communities, providing much data on their plight, having community representatives sand experts speak at the classes, etc.  But nothing can be as powerful as in real, authentic contact, through which the students make a real impact on people in genuine need.  Such is the power of experiential education, and particularly that of service-learning when it is properly done.  

Global Class preparing for Hack-a-thon on Social Distancing

It is 7:30 AM Saturday morning in Hong Kong, but 7:30 PM Friday evening in Maryland, USA.  Students in PolyU and University of Maryland are in a “global” classroom via video-conference. 

They are preparing for a 24-hour Hackathon that will take place in the next weekend. They have formed a number of teams, each with students from Maryland and PolyU.  Each team has selected a community affected by Covid-19 in some way: university students studying through e-learning, children stuck at home without the necessary networking support to study online, the elderly cut off from family, …  At the Hackathon they will design and prototype a solution for a specific community with a specific need.  

Starting a couple of weeks ago, the students are using design thinking methods to study the needs of the communities through their words, feelings, thoughts and actions.  They are using this week to focus on a specific need and prepare for the Hackathon.  

At the Hackathon, they will be joined by several other teams, some with students from South Africa and Cambodia.  Many of the teams are mixed teams with members from different countries.  It is going to be fun, and we are all looking forward to it.  

SLS-3a2 The First 4YUG Cohort - Lessons from Piloting

In the mean time, the development and piloting of service-learning subjects continued.  By the end of 2012, 24 service-learning subject proposals have been approved, the result of very hard work by the OSL and the sub-committee on SL subjects.  However, many have not yet been offered. 

Some of these subjects have been piloted - offered as elective general education subjects for the students in the 3-year undergraduate programs.  This is to gain valuable experience in developing and offering SL subjects.  As explained earlier, service-learning was new to PolyU, and it is much more challenging to offer than most regular academic courses.  It involves a target community to serve, most likely an NGO as a partner, a project serving people in real need, certain risks that must be managed, possible travelling, possible equipment, material and consumables, etc.  We need to ensure that the proposals are practical before we offer them for real.  

The piloting process started in the summer of 2011, and stopped at the end of the 2012-13 academic year.  It was felt, by that point, that the SL Requirement for the 4-year programs had already started, and we should concentrate our efforts in running the requirement for the 4-year programs. The piloting had fulfilled its historical mission - to test the design of the Sl subjects.   Through the piloting, we had learned many valuable lessons, which helped us refine the relevant procedures and vetting criteria, training of teachers and quality control.  Some of the most important lessons include:

1. The SL program works - Based on the guidelines and procedures developed, many SL subjects have been developed, vetted and proved, and successfully piloted.  Even though students in the 3-year undergraduate programs are not required to take SL subjects, when the SL subjects are offered to them as elective general education subject, the students enrol enthusiastically.  Teaching was done according to the syllabus, partners were found, communities served, and the assessments were done fairly smoothly.  The successful piloting gave us the confidence to launch the  requirement formally in 2012.  
2. The importance of the teachers - their experience and attitude towards service-learning.  Perhaps more than many other regular academic subjects, SL is more about attitude than skills.  Hence the person who delivers the teaching carries much more weight in the process.  Imagine a self-absorbed professor trying to teach students to be empathetic. It just wouldn’t work.  Students see through the inconsistency very quickly.  On the other hand, a passionate, socially-engaged professor can make the same syllabus come alive, creating a life-changing experience for the students.  Hence the sub-committee vetting the proposals place a heavy emphasis on the experience and other indication of the teachers’ commitment to SL.  
3. The importance of risk management - SL tackles real world problems with real consequences for vulnerable people.  It is critical to anticipate possible risks to the vulnerable community as well as our students, consequences of failure to deliver the expected service, …  The experience gained through piloting helped us develop a check list and procedures to help the subject teachers manage risks.  The procedures are still continually reviewed and refined. 
4. Balancing between service and learning is a serious but manageable challenge - it is very easy to stress too much on the service or academic learning,  unbalancing the subject.  These two are the issues that come up most often in the process of subject development.  The piloting experience helped us understand how a written syllabus turns into practical teaching, service and learning.  Consequently, it helps us anticipate how a written syllabus might turn out.  It is not an exact science.  But the experience has at least help us predict what type of syllabus has a better chance of being successful.     

Our story will now focus on the first set of subjects offered to the 4-year undergraduate programs.  At a modest 6 subjects with 189 students, offered in the first year of operations.  In time, this modest beginning is going to grow into quite a distinguishing characteristic of education at PolyU that we are so proud of. 

SLS-3a1 The First 4YUG Cohort - 2,400 students per year (later to become 4,000)

In September 2012, the first cohort of ~2,400 students for the new 4-year undergraduate programs enter PolyU - these are the students who just completed grade 12, around 18 years old.  At the same time, the last cohort of students for the old 3-year undergraduate programs also enter PolyU - these are the students who just completed grade 13 (aged 19), the grade which will cease to exist in Hong Kong. From 2012-15, there will actually be two cohorts of students studying side-by-side at PolyU.  But only the students in the 4Y undergraduate programs are required to take service-learning courses.  Since ~2,400 students are admitted to the 4-year undergraduate programs  at PolyU each year, and each one of them is required to take at least one SL course over the 4 years, it is expected that on average ~2,400 students will be taking service-learning courses each year, out of the 2,400 x 4 = 9,600 enrolled in the 4-year undergraduate programs each year. 

Note: The number of students taking SL will soon increase from 2,400 to 4,000 each year.  It is because additional students admitted to the senior years, as well as students admitted into 2-year top-up degree programs will soon also be required to take SL. But we are jumping ahead a little - more on that later.)

Since this is the first year of operations, only one cohort of ~2,400 has been admitted.   and only some of the students are likely to take SL in their first year of studies.  During the first year of studies, the “freshmen” have a lot of matters that demand their attention.  The have to adjust to the teaching methods of university education, which is quite different from that of the regular secondary schools in Hong Kong.  They have to quickly learn about their discipline of study and decide on a study pattern.  For many of them, they also have to strengthen some basics such as languages and mathematics to get ready for the rigorous academic studies.  Hence we do not expect many students to take SL in their first or even the second semesters of the first year of their university life.  

On the other hand, when students are in their final year, many of them have a heavy workload, making up for failed subjects, completing a capstone project, preparing for graduate studies, looking for a job, etc.  Hence it is not very desirable for them to take SL, which can be quite demanding of their attention, energy and emotions.  Hence there is a higher probability that the students may take SL courses during the period ranging from their first summer, to the second year, the third year, to the third summer.  Our experience since then has largely validated that expectation.  

Given these assumptions, the number of students expected to take SL courses in 2012-13 is much smaller than 2,400, perhaps no more than a few hundreds.  But that breathing space is not going to last very long.  Certainly, by 2016, we will need to offer more or less a full range of SL courses, with the capacity to handle ~2,400 students (subsequently revised upwards to 4,000 as explained later).  In 2012-13,  in the first year that PolyU started to require our students to take service-learning subjects, we ended up offering 6 SL subjects to a total of 189 students.  

Religion as Opium of the People

“Opium of the People” is a critique of religion by Karl Marx.  Marx’s point was that religion functions like opium in a sick or injured person. It reduces people’s immediate suffering and provides them with pleasant illusions which gives them the strength to carry on. It is actually harmful because it prevents people from seeing the class structure and oppression around them.  It discourages people from seeking a true solution to their problems.  

Marx’s critique may be correct when it applies to man-made religion which teaches people to be passive, to accept suffering as unavoidable and as karma.  True faith in the truth, however, should liberate.  It frees people from their bondage.  It gives people hope.  It gives people the courage and the strength to face up to the source of oppression and suffering - and to live in truth.  

Some religious leaders, however, are turning the true faith into opium.  They may or may not be doing it on purpose.  But what they teach end up putting self-imposed limits on the true faith.  They preach that faith, which should liberate the whole person, applies only to personal conduct and righteousness.  “Leave the problem of justice in society to God, ” they say.  “Do not take justice into your hands.”  “Our concern is only the soul.”  “The most important thing is to bring people to Christ, to bring them into the church.”  “Let other people worry about poverty, hunger, illness, oppression, injustice.”  “Thank God we have enough masks for ourselves.”  “Thank God we and our family are safe.” “Thank God we have each other carrying for each other.”  “Thank God the virus in our community is under control.”

Truth is supposed to liberate us from sin, from guilt, from fear. To be hopeful, courageous, magnanimous, merciful, and loving people. Instead, these leaders have turned believers into timid, inward-looking, small-minded people who care only for themselves, the people they love, the people who are like them.  They live within the church only.  For them, the world outside is condemned and unredeemable.  God will come back one day to judge the world.  In the mean time, believers should try to stay safe within the warmth of the church community.  Live righteously as an individual. Do not worry about justice in the world.  It is God’s prerogative, it is not our concern, they say.  

This type of thinking matches well with Marx’s critique.  This type of religion is truly opium for the people.  It gives believers the illusion that they are safe, that the evils of the world do not touch them.  There is no need to tackle the oppression in the world - it is God’s prerogative, not ours.  It is like tying up crabs for sale, to be slaughtered in the end.  

Faith in God is supposed to be liberating.  But some people are turning it into opium. No wonder so many people find this type of religion not very appetising. 

 

   

SLS-2c5 Building and Piloting - OSL - Driving Forward

The previous posts have elaborated on some of the basic tasks, critical to the implementation of the SL program, without which the program probably could not be launched successfully.  Our objective, however, was not merely to have the students fulfil the Service-Learning Requirement.  There are also a wide range of tasks, some of which may not be too obvious at the beginning, but nevertheless natural and critical to the healthy development of service-learning at a university.  

One of the most important questions that we have to answer is this: having invested so much energy, resources, time and money into creating the SL program, does it actually achieve the intended objectives for the university?  To answer that question, much evaluation and research has been done, and more are coming.  We are also interested in questions such as the critical success factors for SL, impact on the community, impact on the teachers, what motivates the teachers, how does service-learning relate to academic studies in general, and specific disciplines in particular, etc.  

Since we started with little experience and expertise, our first efforts were naturally modest in rigour, scope, and impact.  In time, we aim to improve in all aspects. The OSL has been in the centre of the push to develop new subjects, improve existing subjects, train teachers, create new and more effective pedagogies, deepen the impact on all stake holders, create collaboration with foreign universities, create world-wide alliances, conduct innovative research to inform our own practice and to contribute to the world-wide community, leverage SL to achieve other institutional objectives such as leadership education and global engagement.  In short, we aim at nothing less than becoming a world-wide centre of excellence on service-learning.  

In many ways, the rest of this book is a telling of our efforts and experiences in this quest. 

SLS-2c4 Building and Piloting - OSL - Funding

Quality education, like most things of value, can be expensive.  Similar to most other universities that take service-learning seriously, PolyU recognised early on that financing  of device-learning has to be tackled.  To offer a large number of academic service-learning courses, significant financial costs have to be covered.  These may include the professors’ time, teaching assistants, equipment, material and consumables, transportation and accommodation costs, insurance, … and administrative fees for collaborating organisations.  

When the decision was made to make service-learning compulsory, credit-bearing subjects, the issue of financing was not discussed explicitly at the Senate, where the decision was made.  But implicitly, a large commitment was understood to have been made to finance the offering these subjects. Service-learning subjects (courses) are regular academic subjects; hence it is reasonable that they are financed in the same way as other general education academic subjects at PolyU.  In fact, it was recognised early on that service-learning, as a form of experiential learning, incur additional costs beyond those of classroom teaching. Hence SL subjects are funded at a premium (roughly 1/3) above other general education academic subjects.  A SL subject carries 3 credits, out of 120 credits required for graduation for an undergraduate.  Hence the funding for SL can be estimated to be roughly 2.5% of the recurring costs for undergraduate programs.  These decisions represent a strong commitment to SL made by the university.  

From the operation of the SL programs over the years, the amount of funding seems to be sufficient to cover the operation of most SL courses.  In some cases, however, there is the need for additional funding beyond the regular provision. Some projects may require the organization of large scale public events, such as the exhibition of special fashion designs produced by the recovering mental patients as rehabilitation, or the organization of competitions for STEM projects developed by secondary school students.  Some technology-based projects may require the purchase or development of special equipment or tools, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, solar panels and associated equipment, sensors.  Offshore projects are particularly desirable for us at PolyU.  Hong Kong is a small place where the population is largely homogenous, with 92% of the population being ethnic Chinese.  On the other hand, the economy has long been driven by foreign trade and globalization. Hence students benefit particularly when they can participate in offshore projects, where they can experience ethnic and other forms of diversity first hand, and gain in valuable global competence. But offshore projects generally incur significant transportation and other costs. 

Some offshore service-learning projects can tap into funding for specific purposes, such as internationalisation, which can be available internally, or from governmental and other sources.  SL projects in the areas of public health, social assistance, etc, can also tap into some specific funding sources.  Gradually, the university has also come to recognise the importance of social responsibility as a graduate attribute, and we have been allocated some strategic funding for these purposes.  OSL have also been working closely with the Alumni Office to solicit donations from alumni and other individuals and organisations, which has proven to be a very valuable source of funding for SL.  

Hike - northern NT

Today a bunch of us hiked a string of hills from Lok Ma Chau to Sheung Shui.  

One thing that struck me again and again, of course, is the contrast between the high rises of Shenzhen, to the north of the Shenzhen River, and the fields and fish ponds of northern New Territories, to the south of the river.  

The other image that stuck in my mind is the undulating little hills and valleys all around the route.  

Why do people keep saying there is no land in Hong Kong?  That we have to spend billions and billions of dollars to create new land by filling in the harbour?  Presumably so that we can build more high rises?

Why can’t we develop some of these land instead?  And build high rises here?  wouldn’t that be cheaper?  We probably want to keep some of the fish ponds, green fields, ...  But there is still a lot of brown fields, underused lands, ...

Surely there are issues such as ownership, environmental impact, infrastructure, etc.   Those require a lot of political will and skills to tackle.  But wouldn’t filling in the harbour create its own set of challenges?

It would appear that we may not have a shortage of land.  But rather a shortage of will and skill.