Crossing the binary line: The founding of the polytechnic in Colonial Hong Kong

Crossing the binary line: The founding of the polytechnic in Colonial Hong Kong

• Wong, Ting Hong

History of Education, 43(4), 524-541, 2014

Routledge

2014

• P Social Context of Education
  • PA History of Hong Kong Education
    • PAB History of Hong Kong Education (1945-1997.6)

Academic Drift Colonialism and Education Politics of Technical Education Higher Education in Colonies Hong Kong Education & Educational Research Social Sciences - Other Topics

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Post-Secondary Education

Using the case of the Hong Kong Polytechnic (HKP), this paper examines academic drift in colonial settings. The HKP, like polytechnics in the UK, was supposedly a service sector institution. Under the binary system in the UK, schools in the service division were governed by the state educational bureaucracy, while the universities - the autonomous sector - were under the University Grants Committee (UGC). When the HKP was being founded, however, it became an institution under the UGC of Hong Kong. This article argues that the HKP could cross the binary line because a polytechnic unsubordinated to the local colonial state would be more serviceable to external agents' interests. This finding suggests that researchers of academic drift - who have hitherto studied exclusively sovereign nations and the impacts of internal factors - should also examine the cases in dependent territories as well as the effects of external influences on such shifts.
[Copyright of History of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0046760X.2014.930185]

• English

Journal Articles

• 0046760X

• 10.1080/0046760X.2014.930185

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/43e5c21b

2014-12-19