CONFIDENTIAL
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10. To some extent this argument has been brought to the fore by the Governor's tentative proposal for a Polytechnic offering advanced technical training. The Governor put this forward originally in 1967 as a project to which HMG might contribute as a gesture of interest and goodwill. It was submitted within the F.C.O. as a project to be considered if additional funds were made available for overseas expenditure as part of a programme to counteract our military withdrawl from South-East Asia. That programme seems to have run into the sands in our present economic difficulties and it is doubtful whether we
shall hear any more of it. The project has been discussed
between the ODM and the Hong Kong University Grants Committee
and it seems clear that the most we can hope for from aid funds
is a token contribution. The discussions with the ODM raised
doubts whether a new institution was necessary and precisely
what its role should be; a further examination of these aspects
was therefore made in Hong Kong.
11.
A Polytechnic Planning Committee was set up under the
Chairmanship of P. Y. Tang, an industrialist and member of
Executive Council, to investigate the requirements of higher
* technical education? This Committee has recommended that the
present technical college should lose its lower standard
courses to the new Morrison Hill Technical Institute, and
that the remaining courses and students, greatly expanded,
should form part of a Polytechnic. A second part of the new
Polytechnic is to be built on Hong Kong Island, and the whole
project should be fully operational by 1975. A final decision
has yet to be taken on this project.
Universities
12. Hong Kong has two Universities. The University of Hong Kong (of which Kenneth Robinson is Vice-Chancellor) was
established in 1911; English is the language of instruction. The Chinese University, inaugurated in 1963, is a federal university in which the principal language of instruction is
Chinese; it is an amalgam of three existing colleges which are
being brought together on one site in the New Territories. XD/E told me there was
he Commuster on to whether the and other members of the Commista : dispute between himself
on the dept. of Educan. We consend That/ 13 ... has Polyrectme shumed be under control of an unde peweard body
indefiler control require was afferifinds way to a CONFIDENTIAL body of Univeraly Walers & There was no cafeerty in
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