HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 2nd October 1969.
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be very useful for kindergarten. The kindergarten level of education might once be regarded as a luxury but this is no longer the case as working families for whom every dollar earned is vitally needed require kindergarten facilities as a matter of urgency.
Here I should like to draw the Council's attention to the very special problem confronting the area of the more isolated and rural communities. In many of these areas it may very well be impractical to provide a school where the numbers of children are too small. It is both uneconomical and ineffectual to run schools of too small units. To obviate difficulty, could not Government entertain the idea of pro- viding transport to carry these children to a more standardized school located centrally within these areas? This may seem to be creating an undesirable precedent but surely it would be more provident than to engage in a building programme which the local requirements do not
warrant.
Having built up a sound basis for primary education, it is indeed right and fitting that we should now begin to set a second target to build up a sound post-secondary educational system.
It is heartening indeed to know that Government has undertaken. to bear the main responsibility for establishing additional educational institutions such as junior technical schools, technical institutes or even higher up to the polytechnics. It is even more encouraging to know that Government is prepared to reconsider the figures of the target set in 1965 for the provision of Government and aided places in post- primary educational institutions and has accepted this fact that the figure of 15-20% of the total number of pupils completing the primary course is unrealistically low in practice.
While Government is examining the question of what this target should be for the future, I wish to emphasize again the urgent need to provide a school place for every boy or girl up to the age of 15. No proposal for a future target can be regarded as satisfactory unless it embraces such a provision. It is quite evidently undesirable that young people of 13, 14 or 15 who are too young to be employed should find themselves at a loose end, with the sense of frustration and inadequacy that is likely to accompany such a state of mind.
May I come to the subject of physical recreation.
Lord WILLIS once said in a debate in the House of Lords, “Work and leisure' are two sides of the same coin. We work in order to have the leisure to enjoy ourselves. Sport offers recreation, in the basic meaning of the word, to many people. Some choose recreational pursuits of a non-competitive nature, others seek the challenge of personal and team contest, competing the standards of fitness and skilled
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