.I
52
are, however, being made. The Hong Kong Association for Continuing Education (HKACE) has been set up to promote the cause of continuing
education and its membership now covers the major organisations
actively engaged in the field. The Director of Education also
chairs a committee on part-time education, on which are represented
the public-sector institutions concerned.
2.74
The report of the Advisory Committee on Diversification
(1979) draws attention to the fact that adult education provides
an opportunity for mature students who were unable to complete a
full course of formal education to do so as adults on a part-time
basis and that its role in the upgrading of Hong Kong's labour force
can be an important one. The report accordingly recommends that
the government should embark on an in-depth study aimed, first, at
a clearer definition of the purposes of adult education and, second,
at its better co-ordination, this study to include consideration
of a Hong Kong open education centre with flexible entry qualifications,
providing education for mature students and requiring a high degree
(These have subsequently been taken into account
of self-learning.
by the Committee to Review Post-Secondary and Technical Education.)
The report also notes that apart from the need to develop specific
professional and technical skills there is an over-riding need for
up-to-date and continuing management training if Hong Kong's industries
are to diversify successfully into new processes, products and markets.
The report points out that though the quality of management education
and training is adequate at the moment, as a result particularly of
the efforts of the Hong Kong Management Association, at least five
separate organisations are separately providing such education and
training, and there is a degree of fragmentation and overlap in their
!