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Asian Studies

Editorial

The delay in the formation of the Asian Studies Centre at Victoria is a step that invites disappointed feelings.

Recently the University Council postponed the abolition of Asian Studies by a year, and at the same time the development of the new centre.

The cause of the delay can be traced to the inability of the University Council to offer an attractive enough professorial salary to a Director.

Students and public have been left uninformed about developments in this field of teaching about Asia. Consequently it is understandable that doubt should be felt at the firmness with which the university intend progressing in this field.

The Centre is theoretically an improvement on the present method of teaching. It allows the subject to be tackled from social science disciplines, rather than demanding an approach from a regional angle, as today.

But at the moment we have neither one or the other option. Students are discouraged from taking Asian Studies in view of the shortage of staff and the course's low academic quality (this being the feeling of some staff members who are in a position to recommend it as a suitable course), whilst at the same time the prospect of studying through the centre is reduced.

Salient have searched in vain for a public statement on the matter by the Council.