Dear Fellow Students,
Updates to Students from the College Management
Wish you all have joyfully relaxed yourself in a well-earned Christmas and New Year holiday! After working so hard to prepare for the examination, you deserve a real break to celebrate the festive season with your family and friends. As 2021 is drawing to a close, it is a pleasure for us to share with you some updates on College operation.
Teaching and Learning
It is a blessing that there has been less operational challenges with face-to-face teaching resumed and smoothly delivered in the past few months. Vaccination records and nucleic test results have been closely checked and monitored. Thanks for your on-going support and efforts to help the College management maintain a safe campus for in-person teaching and activity.
With the completion of the first semester, it’s time for review of teaching and learning for areas in need of improvement. We have mechanisms in different format to solicit your feedback on programme delivery, learning resources and support service on a regular basis. The Student Staff Consultative Meeting was conducted for each learning programme and all students were invited to complete the Teaching Evaluation Questionnaire for courses run in the 1st semester. These exercises are part of the collaborative process where students are involved as an important stakeholder.
Student Development
It is encouraging to us that the College assemblies in the first semester recorded good turnout with positive feedback. We reckon that your participation is not merely due to the presence being a requirement, but for taking the opportunity to widen your horizons from the sharing and enlightenment of the speakers. To ensure your engagement, we have made effort to keep it within one-hour duration as scheduled. We look forward to your continued support and any feedback for improvement.
The QESS project has been running for a year and a half. Hope you have found the project activities inspiring and helpful. Professionals of the project team have designed more tailor-made workshops for the 2nd semester. Don’t miss the valuable opportunity for enhancement of your capacity and personal development.
Programme Development and Re-accreditation
The combined exercise conducted by the Social Workers Registration Board to assess the new Higher Diploma in Social Work Programme and to review the existing Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) Programme was smoothly conducted on 25 and 26 November 2021. Application was also made to add a 3-year part-time conversion mode (Year 3 entry) to the BSW Programme. Members of the School of Social Work and colleagues concerned have completed the arduous task to prepare for the exercise. Initial recommendation for approval was indicated by the Panel, subject to the final result to be reported at a later stage.
Re-accreditation of two higher diploma (HD) programmes, i.e. HD in Transformative Business Management, and HD in Psychology and Counselling, was also smoothly conducted, via zoom meeting, by the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications on 8 to 10 December 2021. The interim report indicates that both programmes can continue to be offered with a validity period of three year.
National Security
You probably would have noticed from the media about the enactment of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (“NSL”). The Education Bureau has been communicating with the higher education sector on the legal obligations stipulated under the NSL. As a law-abiding body, like all other local post-secondary institutions, GCC is expected to suitably strengthen our mechanisms and operation with a view to effectively preventing on-campus acts that may contravene the NSL and other laws of Hong Kong.
Graduation Ceremony
Given the absence of new Covid-19 cases for months in the local community and taken into consideration of other public events held lately, the College management finds that it would be an opportune time to plan for the Graduation Ceremony of the College, which will be the first one since the College’s establishment. The Ceremony is tentatively scheduled for 11 March 2022 (Friday) at evening time. The venue is Southorn Stadium in Wanchai. Further details will be announced in due course.
Finally, we would like to convey our best wishes to you all. Hope you will all return to the 2nd semester feeling refreshed and energized.
College Management