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Wednesday, March 6, 1974
a reaching out basis.
The first is a suggestion for a counselling and guidance service on
"The plan is to use youth or community centres as
operational bases to reach out to potential problem youths who have either
dropped out or are about to drop out of school," he explained.
Experienced youth agencies would be approached but the first step
would be to set up a steering group to consider the basic problems of
such a service. Initial projects would have to be run for a year to see
whether they were worthwhile.
At this stage, Mr. Bray said, nobody knows how many such projects
would be necessary.
The other proposal concerned an expansion of craft classes which aim
simply to get the children into a place where they could potter about under
guidance with the sort of tools and materials that may be useful to them in
earning a living.
AM
A. pilot scheme could be started on a trial basis, he said, to devolop
leisure-time activities classes similar to the 10 now operated by the
Boys and Girls Clubs Association for children in the education gap.
For 1,000 children in 10 classes the annual cost would approach
$500,000, he said.
And if it worked, assuming it took two years to set up and evaluate
this scheme, it would have to be expanded fifteen times to reach children not
at school or at work, and forty-five times to get all children in the education
gap, he added. The cost would then be $22.5 million a year without building.
Mr. Bray said he knew that the Kwun Tong Vocational Training Centre
would like to help, and with their present buildings could take in 120 children
The number of children at a cost of nearly $200,000 a year for instruction.
could be doubled to 240 in, say two or three years after some building extensions,
he noted.
Some 200 such centres would be required at a cost of $80 million a year if buildings could be found to cover all children not at school, he said,
Note to Editors:
Copies of the full text of Mr. Bray's speech are boxed for collection.
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