What are the distinctive features of Service-Learning at PolyU?

What makes Service-Learning at PolyU different?  Many PolyU persons like to claim that we are the first university in Hong Kong to require all students to take service-learning as credit-bearing courses.  But being the first is just history.  Others can easily catch up. 

Some point to the passion of the leaders and teachers.  However, the ones who create a service-learning program at any university must necessarily be visionary; and any successful program must be backed-up by a group of passionate teachers.  Passion is required but not sufficient.  

We are proud of the strong impact of some of our projects.  But many universities have also carried out impactful projects.  We send hundreds of students to carry out projects in foreign countries.  But many universities also have impressive international projects.  

We conduct research and publish in academic journals, we organise staff training for many.  But so do many others. … 

Ultimately, we believe it is the confluence of three beliefs and their successful realisation that makes our program distinctive:

1. We believe that service-learning is the best way to nurture civic engagement, hence we require all undergraduates to take at least one credit-bearing course in service-learning; and we successfully developed sufficient high-quality courses to enrol more than 4 thousand students a year. 
2. We believe that all academic disciplines have something to offer to address the needs of the community; and roughly 90% of our academic departments are offering at least one SL course.  
3. We believe Service-Learning is fundamentally general education, broadening the scope of a student’s education.  Hence a SL course is generally anchored in a specific  academic discipline, but open to students from other disciplines.  The majority of SL courses at PolyU are like this.  The rest (less than 25%) are discipline-specific courses designed for students who major in that discipline.  

For example, SL courses offered by computing and electrical engineering admit students from engineering, nursing, design, business, language, …, teach them basic electricity principles and how to use hand tools, and sends them to install solar panels in Cambodia and Rwanda.  A SL course offered by textiles takes students from textiles, design,  but also engineering, …, teaches them clothes making, and sends them to help recovering mental patients design their own fashion. 

That is what truly make Service-Learning at PolyU distinctive.  It is the nature and strength of these basic beliefs, their confluence, and the fact that we have been able to turn these beliefs into reality, that makes it distinctive.