The school is a self-financing unit which offers programmes to meet the demands of education for people at work. The subsidy granted will be used to develop a programme especially for teachers and company senior staff to help increase their knowledge in The Basic Law.
The university is the first tertiary institute in Hong Kong to receive a subsidy from the Preliminary Working Committee, and the amount granted is reportedly the greatest among similar applications.
The grant in fact came from a fund of the committee for the promotion of the Basic Law. According to Professor Ng Ching Fing, dean of the Faculty of Science at Baptist University and a member of the working committee's cultural sub-committee, the money came from people of all walks. Yet, he refused to disclose the names of the benefactors.
Professor Ng explained how the course came into being.
"On one occasion last year, I had a talk with Dr. C.C. Wan, head of the School of Continuing Education, and we both agreed on the increasing importance of arousing public interest in the Basic Law.
"Hong Kong nowadays still lacks a formal in-depth course on the Basic Law in a rather serious approach," he said.
They then saw that the School of Continuing Education might be professional and experienced enough to offer such programme.
This is because for years, the school has organized a number of section courses and talks on The Basic Law. They generally received good responses from the public.
Hence, Professor Ng believed that this was the right time for the school to further increase the resources and establish a unique programme.
Mr. Albert Lau Yuet Ming, the senior coordinator of the school, said this programme would be meaningful to the future of Hong Kong.
"A survey conducted by Radio Television Hong Kong revealed that nearly 75 percent of Hong Kong people claimed they knew little about the Basic Law," he said.
"Yet, learning the Basic Law and having a good understanding of it is every citizen's responsibility. At the same time, one will know better how to fight for his own rights," said Mr. Lau.
According to Mr. Lau, the programme format would be composed of two parts.
On the one hand, an information library will be established stocking of related documents, references, cassette tapes and video tapes.
On the other hand, the school will propose a Basic Law course as a credit course for a bachelors degree of education. This is to earn more recognition and respect for the document from the society.
"Many teachers notice the need to teach the Basic Law in schools, but at the same time they just do not know how to do so," he said.
Hence, as Mr. Lau said, the course would put greater emphasis on methodology in teaching the Basic Law so that teachers and senior staff will learn how to weave the knowledge into their daily work.
"Through the course, they are expected to gain sufficient background knowledge about the characteristics of the Basic Law," he said.
According to Mr. Lau, one of the problems they face right now is the lack of teaching staff.
"We need professionals who are experts in both the Basic Law and in how to present the information vividly in both visual and audio aspects.
"Guest lecturers may be invited, but they may not all be the Preliminary Working Committee's members. Instead, the school prefers those law experts who had given lessons in previous section courses of the school."
According to Mr. Lau, some lecturers proposed are Professor Lau Siu-kai, member of the committee and senior lecturer at the Chinese University; Professor Albert Chen, head of the Department of Law at the University of Hong Kong and Professor Xu Song-de, one of the directors of the Beijing-Hong Kong Academic Exchange Centre.
Despite receiving a considerable grant from the committee, Mr. Lau denied the possibility that the programme and the school would be dyed a political colour.
One defence is that the school also received a grant from the Civil Education Committee.
"The committee usually grants $70,000 in common cases. Yet, this time we were exceptionally privileged, as we were granted $120,000 for programme development," said Mr. Lau.
"Universities are places for independent research and studies and should not be involved in any political activity.
"We introduce the programme out of a sense of social responsibility. We are trying to do it purely from academic approach," he said.
Professor Ng said that the Preliminary Working Committee would not intervene in the operation of the programme and course design.
"The committee has studied the course outline carefully, assessed its effectiveness and has decided to accept it.
"The committee only reserves the right to monitor the progress of the programme, and receive periodical reports from the school," he said.
He pointed out that it is common for any benefactor to know how the money has been spent. "The public need not have to be overly sensitive about the intention behind this," Mr. Lau said.
According to Professor Ng, the goal of the course is not to change people's minds and make them favour the Basic Law. Instead, an open, balanced and unbiased teaching method is expected.
"People taking the course will not necessarily have to change their mind and like the Basic Law. Yet, their attitudes ought to be fair and objective," he said.
"The school would welcome any comments and opinions given under academic interests for the sake of improving quality of the programme," Mr. Lau said.
Dr. Leslie Lo Nai Kwai, dean of the Faculty of Education at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, though appreciating the rationale behind this, doubts the effectiveness of the programme.
"The Basic Law is too vague to have any kind of interpretation. And those lecturers may eventually run the risk of telling how the working students should think _ they are giving meaning to the law," said he.
"In my eyes, Hong Kong educators are generally diligent and responsible. However, if one is trying to impart knowledge which he is not so familiar with, very often he may stick closely to the authoritative document in teaching," Dr. Lo continued.
"Also, when we are discussing a law, we need to take precedents as case studies. Yet, the Basic Law has not even been executed in Hong Kong," he said.
Dr. Lo said that the faculty itself, in the meantime, would not set up a specific course particularly on the Basic Law.
"Our faculty has provided legal education, moral and civil education which have indirectly included the Basic Law."
Dr. Cheng Kai Ming, dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong, also said they would not consider adding courses on the Basic Law.
"The programme is good but the way to interpret the Basic Law will be up to everybody," said Dr. Cheng.
"Sometimes, there are related seminars and forums in the university and we would prefer some open discussions upon civil matters," said he.
In response to the criticisms, Mr. Lau of the school said, "Working students may feel free to give judgement and evaluations to the course in their own accord."
At present, besides the School of Continuing Education of Baptist University, a similar school at the Chinese University and the Open Learning Institute also offer courses for working educators. However, the latter two do not have plans to set up courses in teaching the Basic Law.
Miss Belinda Yip of the Public Affairs Unit of the Open Learning Institute said that some updated information on the Basic Law is usually diffused in courses like "Education and Society" and "Civic Education".
"This allows the greatest flexibility for the courses," she said.
As for the School of Continuing Education of the Chinese University, Miss Christine Man, the spokesperson, said, "The school has co-organised a course on education with Deakin University in Australia.
"Its content basically inherits from the country. Hence, it covers nothing on the Basic Law."
Turning back to the course, Mr. Lau of the School of Continuing Education said it would be open to 1,500 working students in September. Preparation was started in April and it will be finished within six months.
"Teachers and senior staff will be our targets in this stage and we will gradually extend our coverage to different levels of society, according to the responses," Mr. Lau said.