THE PROBLEM
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It can be seen that the problem regarding primary education in Hong Kong is not that there are insufficient primary places, but that the Hong Kong Government does not yet wish to commit itself to introducing compulsory primary education coupled with a family education assistance scheme.
Even if free primary education were introduced immediately, this would not solve the problem of families who are forced to keep their children away from school because of economic reasons. This is verified by the fact that as of September 30, 1969, the Education Department had available over 15,000 free primary places together with free text books, which were not taken up by families whose primary school-age children were not in school.
COMPULSORY BEFORE FREE
In principle, the Civic Association is in favour of compulsory and free primary education, However, it is felt that this should be approached in three stages:
(A)
The Education Department should mobilize the efforts of community groups at the district level in the urban areas and in the New Territories to locate families whose primary-age children are not attending school. Every assistance must be given to such families to enable their children to attend school. necessary a monthly subsidy should be provided either through a voluntary agency or directly by the Social Welfare Department.
(B)
If
Draft Legislation for compulsory primary education should be prepared and circulated to all Government City District and New Territories District Offices so that they may consult district community groups for comments and suggestions. After such consultation, which might take anywhere between 3-12 months, compulsory primary education should be enacted into law. Meanwhile, Government will have to press ahead with providing more secondary school places, particularly in the vocational and technical fields.
(C) As soon as there are sufficient secondary school places (at least for the first 3 years of secondary education), the Education Department should introduce free primary education as well.
As of August 1968, there were 11 voluntary agencies providing financial assistance varying between HK$45 to HK$200 monthly per family in order to enable 24,904 children of such families to go to school. This Family Education Subsidy totalled about HK$12 million yearly, over 90% of which was raised from sources outside of Hong Kong, since the Hong Kong Government did not give much attention to providing such family education subsidy for very poor families.
AN ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENT
Compulsory primary education is an absolute requirement for the younger jeneration of Hong Kong. As stated by Education Department, the aim of the six-year primary school course is "to provide a good general education." Since there is a large number of drop-outs every year, the Civic Association contends that the Hong Kong Government is still not fulfilling its responsibility towards providing Hong Kong children with this fundamental requirement of a good general education. This is all the more incomprehensible when we take into consideration Hong Kong's unsurpassable record for having good annual budget surpluses, coupled with its inability to borrow money for local development purposes from the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank simply because Hong Kong is financially too credit-worthy. (Last year, Hong Kong's budget surplus exceeded HK$500 million, or over £35 million).