Lilian Goh
Managing Editor

General education should
be welcome

Over-specialization creates a lot of problems these days that could be addressed through general education.
One of the dominant characteristics of capitalism, specialization aims at high efficiency. However, over-specialization can have the opposite effect.
Employers sometimes grouse that people are so specialized that they lack general knowledge. Experts say that the quiz show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? exactly reflects Hong Kong people’s deficiencies in general knowledge.
Although the government often urges people to re-train and engage in self-learning, the fundamental problem is that our educational system puts too much emphasis on specialization. Students may know about Newton’s Laws of Motion, but not about the Legislative Council.
Many local universities have realized the problem in recent years and thus have increased the number of general education courses one by one. Some universities like The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Polytechnic University even make general education courses compulsory.
Yet, it is also necessary for secondary school students to recieve general education. To start in the universities is too late. Moreover, students who do not enter universities have no exposure to general education at all.
Therefore, a proposal by the Education Department to add general education as a compulsory subject in secondary schools should be welcome. This would help to increase the level of common knowledge of students and encourage them to be more concerned about public affairs.
Besides, general education should include moral education as well. Moral education would not teach students what they ought to do and what they ought not to do as strict laws and rules, but the key is to encourage them to think about the rationales of moral judgments and their significance in society.
As long as we still believe in the virtue of morality, like that of traditional culture, there is no reason that we should keep it from classrooms.
In summary, in order to increase the quality of local students, the value of general education should not be neglected.