drawing and practical subjects, a higher performance being required, of students wishing to enter the 'diploma' courses. Students from secondary technical schools would obviously be particularly suitable for technician training and would find themselves ahead of their grammar school contemporaries. The latter may well in fact, need an additional year of practical studies, science and drawing in certain cases prior to entering a 'diploma' course. Entrants from the trade courses or from those who failed to complete their secondary course, would need a pre-technician course of from one to two years duration. This course (G 1 & 2) would be diagnostic in that it would determine a student's suitability for the 'diploma' or the 'T' course. It would concentrate heavily on mathematics, science and practical subjects. A selection process at the end of the first year of the course would indicate those students having the necessary ability to tackle the more mathematical and theoretical concepts; they would take a further (G2) year of pre-technician work before entering the 'diploma' course. Those not selected at the completion of the first year would go into the first year of the 'T' course. Direct entry into the diploma course would only be possible on the possession of credits or '0' levels in three appropriate subjects.
4.9. The 'diploma' courses would consist of two parts, the first of one to two years duration leading to an ordinary diploma examination followed by a further two-year course to a higher diploma; it would be desirable for there to be a gap of a year between the two courses so that students could attain some industrial experience before trying to complete the more advanced course. Alternatively the latter could be operated on a sandwich basis. Students showing particular ability in the ordinary diploma examination should be re-directed into a suitable university course. The 'T' courses on the other hand would involve either three parts of intermediate and final stages and would require two years of full-time work or four years of part-time work for completion. A careful watch will need to be made of the relative numbers of technicians required of the 'diploma' and 'T' course types.
4.10.
All full-time technician courses should include three to five hours of liberal studies. The engineering or building courses should also contain sufficient practical trade or craft work of an associated kind, since the technicians will inevitably, in the majority of jobs, be concerned with overlooking the work of tradesmen. For the same reason, higher diploma work should contain an element of supervisory studies. emphasis in the teaching of technicians work should be on laboratory and workshop studies generally and as much use as possible should be made of project work since it is in this way that an ability to innovate and improvise can be developed.
Commercial Education
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4.11. In this field four main routes of training are discernible. first provides instruction in the clerical arts, the second in book-keeping and the third in stenographic training. The fourth offers a business education through the 'diploma'-type course to which reference has already been made. The normal entry standard for clerical training is eight years of general education but for book-keeping ten or even eleven years is preferable and for stenographic work eleven years is essential; is due to the need to be fully proficient in Chinese and English. case of technician work as we have seen, a school certificate with appropriate credits in three or four subjects is usually necessary. Entrants from secondary courses having a commercial bias would be particularly valuable and the time of training in the clerical arts might well be decreased by as much as twelve months.
In the
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