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Following is the speech by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Joseph W P Wong, in moving the second reading of the Lingnan University Bill in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

President,

I move that the Lingnan University Bill be read the second time.

The Bill seeks to give effect to the retitling of Lingnan College as "Lingnan University" and its adoption of a new internal governance structure.

Lingnan College started to offer degree programmes in 1991, and became a fully publicly-funded tertiary institution in 1992. Under our established policy, the granting of university title to any of the non-university institutions funded by the University Grants Committee (UGC) would be considered when the following three conditions are met. First, the institution should accept the principle and terms of a differentiation of roles among UGC-funded institutions. Second, it should accept and implement a common basis of funding as applied to other UGC-funded universities. Thirdly and most important of all, it must attain self-accrediting status.

With its unfaltering effort to improve its academic quality and internal quality assurance mechanism over the past years, Lingnan College attained self-accrediting status in September last year. As Lingnan College has fulfilled the three conditions mentioned above, it is considered appropriate to award university title to Lingnan College.

Apart from retitling Lingnan College, the Bill also provides that, to be in line with the practice of other tertiary institutions, the internal governance structure of the future Lingnan University will consist of a Council, which is the executive body of the University, a Court, which mainly performs an advisory role, and a Senate, which is the supreme academic body of the University.

The Chief Executive is currently the titular head of Lingnan College, and will continue to hold such a post in the future Lingnan University.

As Lingnan College has been funded fully on par with other University Grants Committee-funded institutions, the awarding of university title to the College will neither incur additional Government resources nor affect the existing basis for funding allocation among tertiary institutions.

The future Lingnan University will continue its mission to become an internationally recognised liberal arts university with Hong Kong characteristics. The institution has expressed its strong wish for the Bill to be passed within the current legislative session so that its 1999 graduates can enjoy the privilege of the university title. I hope Members can support the early passage of the Bill.

Thank you, President.

End/Wednesday, June 23, 1999

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