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activities as well as a lack of a common objective in meeting Hong
Kong's needs in the future. On this point the report recommends
that the Director of Education's lead towards reconciling the
training offered by some organisations should be taken up by the
Industrial Training Authority proposed elsewhere in the report.
2.75
Public criticism of the government's policy on adult (and
continuing) education is not widespread but it is intense among
some of the organisations and individuals working directly in the
field. The burden of their complaint is that this sector has
consistently been given too low a priority in educational development,
that funds are manifestly inadequate and that there is insufficient
official recognition of the need for a massive programme of retrieval
education. It is an undeniable fact that the enormous cost of
providing a basic nine-year course of education and of extending
and improving opportunities in the senior secondary and tertiary
sectors has overshadowed other desirable but less pressing developments.
The 1978 White Paper announced a new initiative in that henceforth
the main thrust of the government's policy for developing retrieval
courses for adults would be directed to assisting voluntary
organisations to complement and supplement the Education Department's
own courses. 18 courses following the guidelines set out in the
White Paper have subsequently been approved on a trial basis, and
the other White Paper proposals for strengthening the administration
and improving the quality of adult education are now being implemented.
The view that adult and tertiary education could develop side by side
to an appreciable extent if the open education centre concept (or
other distance learning techniques) were developed has been expressed,
and this field is accordingly being included in the current review of
post-secondary and technical education.