Page 104 - FSTE A5 Handbook

Appendix 1
A Brief Survey of Overseas Transfer
Practices of General Education Courses

Every GE-providing university has a wide-range of areas when it comes to offering GE courses
to students. However, the required amount of GE in their undergraduate studies varies from
university to university, albeit it can be generally observed that approximately one sixth to a
third of the curriculum are reserved and assigned for GE education.

In terms of credit recognition, the United States has the most transparent policy for credit
transfer. The practice of the Academic Passport, unlike block transfer from other universities,
allows a sub-degree qualification to be recognized automatically regardless of the awarding
institutions and the receiving universities (as long as it is one of the recognizing universities in
the recognition agreement). When such an agreement is not applicable, the use of a publicly-
available database is also a helpful way to facilitate credit recognition across institutions.

In terms of our development of GE programme and the practice of credit recognition, the
system in Hong Kong universities are quite advanced, albeit there is still room for improvement.
It is suggested that further and more in-depth investigations in US higher education should be
performed because it may be beneficial to improve the flexibility of the system in Hong Kong.

91