CONFIDENTIAL
BRIEF 6
OVERSEAS STUDENTS' FEES
4
HMG's decision to raise the recommended level of tuition fees for students has aroused considerable feeling in Hong Kong, in view of the territory's special relationship with the UK. This is aggravated by the fact that by a technicality students from the French overseas territories and from Gibraltar are classified as home students. At the close of the Adjournment Debate on this subject in the Commons on 10 July, Dr Rhodes Boyson, Minister of State for Education and Science, undertook to monitor in October 1980 the effect of the higher fees on student admissions,
He while giving no guarantee that the policy would be changed. confirmed HMG's readiness to help Hong Kong in the development of its higher education system.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION FROM CHINA
5
Levels of illegal immigration have risen in the course of 1980 from an average of about 135 per day in January to over 300 per day in June and July. Present policy is that those who reach base (ie the urban areas of Hong Kong) are not repatriated. is local pressure to change this policy.
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES
6
There
On 5 August there were still 38,273 Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong. The rate of off-take from Hong Kong is the slowest of all countries of first asylum in the region, due largely to Hong Kong's humanitarian policy, which compares very favourably with its South-East Asian neighbours. As a result, many resettlement countries give priority to refugees from elsewhere in the region. The net off-take has been particularly slow in recent weeks due to an increase in the rate of arrivals, and a shortage of permanent accommodation for them in the United Kingdom.