Community Service Platform

Service based learning is a kind of experiential learning that relies upon involvement in community service – either as a co-curricular activity or a teaching and learning strategy. It integrates valuable community service with leadership and reflection to enrich the education process, help understand civic responsibility and strengthen communities. Through service-learning, students attain a range of vital personal, social and career-enhancing skills that aid academic performance. These include increased activity engagement, enhanced moral reasoning and ethical evaluation, a higher level of critical thinking and problem solving, as well as a greater awareness of community problems and the challenge of social inequalities.

At HKIEd, these service-learning opportunities are provided mainly by the Student Affairs Office (SAO). They include projects organized by student groups to serve many groups in society, such as the mentally or physically disabled, senior citizens, and poverty-stricken communities. Students do not just volunteer for this work: it forms a part of their non-formal education in order to develop their leadership and organizational abilities. Since June 2008, the SAO expanded its range of collaborative partners of its service learning programmes from local NGOS and schools to overseas organizations in the Service Exposure Attachment (SEA) programmes to over international sites. Working with the General Education Office (GEO), the SAO also incorporated service-learning into general academic education modules, starting from the second semester of the year 2008-2009, so that students began to integrate community service with academic study through careful reflection of moral concepts and knowledge gained in class.