Research On Educational Function Of Voluntary Service

Today world is said to be changing rapidly. With the rapid development of information technology which accelerates the change, leading to the emerging of "globalization" and the advent of knowledge-based economy. New style of thinking and the tredmenous development of many new things has become the new picture of contemporary world. With the advent of the 21 st century, educationists all over the world have been facing the coming challenges of education. They have begun to develop measures and strategies to resolve the problems. In 1996, Jacques Delors, the Chairman of the International Board of Education of the UNESCO proposed an important report entitled "Learning-The Treasure Within". The report gathered opinions and comments from a number of education experts. It is based on the Commission's research and reflection on the future challenges facing education. The report could be made available to decision makers of education in various nations all over the world as a basis for educational reform and action proposal. Accordingly, it reiterates the four pillars of education, i.e., Learning to know, Learning to do, Learning to live together and Learning to be."Learning-The Treasure Within" opens a new era for the development of lifelong learning, it also launched a new global direction and indicators of education reform.Indeed, the core issue of education reform is how to nourish our students to be capable of "living" in this rapidly changing and ever challenging society. How to help our children to become responsible citizens, be alert to the needs of others in the society and willing to serve in the community?Voluntary service is more and more widespread in the community and it gradually becomes an active force for the development of modem society. Issues related to voluntary service has increasingly become the focus of theoretical research in academic community at home and abroad. In fact, the trend of running voluntary service in the world has generally become the practice of citizen participation and civic responsibility. In schools, "service learning", the new strategy of integrating community service with the school curriculum has begun to flourish development, especially in the USA.In September,2000, The Education Commission (EC) submitted to the Government the "Reform Proposal for the Education System in Hong Kong". In his Policy Address 2000, the Chief Executive endorsed the recommendations made by the EC for reforming the education system in Hong Kong. The scope of the reform covers the curricula, the assessment mechanisms as well as the admission systems for different stages of education. The Government has published a timetable for implementing the reform measures. In December 2006, the EC issued the fourth "Progress Report on the Education Reform" providing a detailed account of the progress in the seven key areas of the education reform since its last three reports in January 2002, June 2003 and December 2004. The fourth EC reporting session was also held for various stakeholders to hear their views on the reform implementation.The implementation of a comprehensive education reform in Hong Kong, especially the New Senior Secondary (NSS) has been started in September,2009. Among the new senior secondary curriculum, in addition to some of the core curriculum subjects, a new subject named "Liberal Studies" has been introduced. In addition, the concept of "Other Learning Experiences", an integral part which include moral and civic education, social services, and work-related experiences, aesthetic and sports development has also been introduced during the reform. Under the NSS curriculum structure, "Other Learning Experiences" is regarded as one of the three components to complement the core and elective subjects for students to achieve all-round development.Education reform in Hong Kong, with reference to the experience of Western countries, introduces "Community Service" as one of the elements in "Other Learning Experiences" in the NSS curriculum. Senior secondary students are encouraged to participate in community service. It can therefore be said that a clear declaration of the value and significance of voluntary service has been strengthened. However, there are still many problems. The researchers believe that volunteer service in the development of Hong Kong schools, it is necessary to pay attention to learn from the successful experience of Western countries, but also promote Hong Kong's unique traditional Chinese and Western cultures, especially in the ideological and moral construction, but more worthy of attention. On the other hand, for schools to organise voluntary service, they need to be actively and properly that it is necessary to ensure its healthy development and to actualize its educational function and its huge hidden potential. It is therefore worth for the researchers to study and examine the educational function of voluntary service. In addition, to focus on both theory and practice details on voluntary service and learning activities by the introduction of "service learning" in this new education concepts and methods, especially related to domestic and international experience and research, practice methods and in how to integrate theory with practices and so on. The results can be expected to promote the youth for future reference in organising voluntary service.The researchers expect that through this study and answer the questions including what is voluntary service? What are the educational function of voluntary service? How to implement these features? The implementation of voluntary service in schools what problems exist? How can these problems be resolved?This paper consists of introduction and body composition. Introduction introduces the background, the significance of this study and the research methods and basic framework of the study. The body consists of six parts. The first part investigates the concept of voluterrism in the East and West and starts the process of historical evolution of voluntary service, the spirit of the volunteerism, the basic concept of volunteerism and to define the basic characteristics of volunteer service. The second part introduces the domestic and international experience of voluntary service and from research studies, the educational function of voluntary service is analyzed. The third part is discussed in detail in the history of Hong Kong to review how voluntary service was carried out, its functional advantages, the historical opportunity. In addition, how Hong Kong secondary school students participated in voluntary service was thoroughly studied. The fourth part focuses on understanding of our work in schools in the implementation of the voluntary service and illustrates what problems exist, and how these problems can be solved? The fifth part is a combination of domestic and international experience related to volunteer service, through participation in the project, namely "From Service Learning to Liberal Studies project". The approach in which how the USA education authorities implement community service through "service learning" would be examined thoroughly. Part VI is the conclusion, summarizes the research on the text and propose issues to be addressed and future research.