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3.
FREE FURTHER AND HIGHER EDUCATION?
There is a partial fees remission scheme for full-time students attending technical institutes, and schemes for grants and loans for students taking full-time courses at colleges of education, the Hong Kong Polytechnic and the two universities. In 1976-77 27% of students at technical institutes received some degree of fees remission and 60%-70% at colleges of education, 47% at the Hong Kong Polytechnic and over 60% at the universities received grants and/or loans.
4.
CHILDREN OUT OF SCHOOL
I
I would refer to the reply that my hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs gave to my hon. Friend, the member for Liverpool, Scotland Exchange Division (Mr Parry) on 8 December that, at September 1975, the latest date for which a figure is available, 25,100 children aged between 10 and 14 years in Hong Kong were not enrolled in any school.7
5. SCHOOL DROP-OUTS
I
I would refer to the reply that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary-for-Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs gave to my hon. Friend, the member for Liverpool, Scotland Exchange Division, Mr Parry, on 8 December last that information on the number of children aged 10-14 years in Hong Kong who did not complete three years of secondary schooling in each year since 1973 will not be available until the results of the 1976 bi-census are known later this year.7
SOCIAL WELFARE
6. PUBLIC ASSISTANCE SCHEME
I
I would refer to the reply that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs gave to the hon. member for Richmond (Sir Anthony Royle) on 3 February
that the public assistance scheme was to be extended from 1 April 1977 to include unemployed able-bodied persons between 15 and 55 years of age, that it will apply to those who have lived in Hong Kong for two years and have been unemployed for one month and that the Director of Social Welfare will have discretion to make payments to persons in distress who are not able to meet the proposed criteria