DRAFT
Ref.: TC 268/76 II
Drafted by
J
NCLS
Dear Sir,
Typed by
mm
Dated
27.9.77
Letter to
Mr. LAM Wah-hui, Hon. General Secretary, Government School Non- Graduate Teachers' Union,
46-48 Man King Building, 2/F.,
Ferry Point, Kowloon,
HONG KONG.
}
The Secretary of State has asked me to thank
you for your letter of 2 September 1977 and to reply
on his behalf.
Your contention that your Union has not been
recognised by the Hong Kong Government as a consultative
body does not accord with the Secretary of State's
understanding of the position. Your Union, together with
other unions and associations representing staff employed
in the Education Department, is a member of the Education
Department Consultative Council and has subscribed to its
constitution. You are aware from the constitution that
the Consultative Council was not intended to be a policy-
making body for education but one where the views of
the Unions representing the Education Department's staff
could be heard on matters affecting their interests.
I am advised that both of the matters to which
you referred in your letter have been discussed in the
Consultative Council. The Government primary schools
that have been converted for use as secondary schools
would in any event have had to cease operation as
primary schools owing to under-utilization.
The use of
the surplus premises of some of these schools to create
new secondary schools to be managed within the aided
sector is seen to be in accordance with the policy in
the 1965 White Paper that Government should provide schools
only where an aided school cannot be provided. This
matter has been discussed on several occasions in the
Consultative Council since August 1976 and it has been
also the subject of correspondence on several occasions
between your Union and senior officers of the Government
Secretariat.