6.5
the two year post-Form VI course who had demonstrated the
ability to proceed to a higher award (para 6.20).
Qualifications awarded at the end of the post-Form VI courses
to be aligned with those awarded by the Polytechnic to
comparable students (para 6.19) and the government to recognise
students completing the further one-year course successfully
and entering the government service as having the same
eligibility and entitlements as would be granted to
Polytechnic students studying one year beyond the Higher
Diploma Level: an independent assessment of qualifications
to be carried out (para 6.20).
The policy proposals outlined above were based on the findings
of the Working Party on Senior Secondary and Tertiary Education, May 1977
(referred to hereafter as the 1977 Working Party) whose report embodied
certain assumptions on social demand (what the community wants), on
economic demand (what the community needs) and on the number of students
who can be considered qualified to proceed to higher education. The
views of the 1977 Working Party, and the assumptions on which these
views were based, were re-assessed in the light of changing circumstances
by a small working group of officials in December 1979 (referred to
hereafter as the 1979 Working Group) in order to facilitate discussion
with the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee during their
visitation in March 1980 that is, as a forerunner to the current
review of post-secondary and technical education (the White Paper having
stated at paragraph 6.6 that the government would reconsider the
university growth rate in the 1980s, having regard to the demand for
local places, to opportunities overseas and to the employment prospects
of graduates).
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