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Following is a question by Ir Dr the Hon HO Chung-tai and a written reply by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Professor Arthur K C Li, in the Legislative Council today (May 12):

Question:

Regarding law programmes offered by local universities, will the Government inform this Council whether it knows:

(a) the respective enrolment capacities and enrolments of various full-time and part-time bachelor's degree and master's degree programmes in law run by the University of Hong Kong ("HKU") and City University of Hong Kong ("CityU") in the past three years;

(b) if HKU and CityU allowed taking the above programmes in distance learning mode in the past three years; if so, of the programmes involved and the respective numbers of HKU and CityU students who have dropped out from such programmes; and

(c) the rationale for the establishment of a faculty of law in the 2006-07 academic year proposed by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, as well as the proposed programmes and numbers of places to be offered by the faculty?

Reply:

Madam President,

(a) The numbers of student intakes and applicants of undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes in law offered by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in 2001/02 to 2003/04 academic years are set out at Annex A.

(b) The above programmes are not offered in distance learning mode.

(c) The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) proposed to establish a law school in the 2006/07 academic year. According to its Academic Development Proposal (ADP) for the 2005/06 to 2007/08 triennium, CUHK considers that being a comprehensive university, the establishment of a School of Law is in line with its role and mission. Having considered the findings of the "Consultancy Report on Review of Legal Education and Training in Hong Kong", CUHK sees a case for more well-trained lawyers in Hong Kong, and CUHK can play a useful role to train quality lawyers. The University indicates that in various disciplines of humanities and social science (including economics, finance, sociology, public administration and political science, Chinese imperial and modern history, information technology and others), it has excellent performance in teaching and research endeavours. The University believes the establishment of a law school in CUHK will be able to take advantage of and build around these strong subject areas.

According the CUHK's ADP, the University proposed to launch legal education programmes (with public funding) in the 2005/06 to 2007/08 triennium (details set out at Annex B).

Ends/Wednesday, May 12, 2004

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