8.3
(k)
4
No problems are foreseen in reaching the target of
12,000 full-time equivalent students in the Polytechnic
by 1983/84: within this total the Polytechnic hopes to
start offering some courses at degree level and to increase
the number of students on higher level work.
Reaction among unofficial members of the Legislative Council
to the education section of the Governor's Address and to his report of an
upsurge in juvenile crime (see paragraph 8.8) reflects the extent of the
general concern with the present state of education and with the
direction of future policy. This concern is also reflected in the
wide terms of reference of the Committee to Review Post-Secondary and
Technical Education.
Current concerns
8.4
There is bound to be a substantial body of criticism within
the community of a system which provides for more than 1.4 million
children in school (some 27 per cent of the total population) as well as
supporting a widely diversified post-school educational sector, and no
review of the system, however searching, could possibly take into account
every facet of that criticism. There are nevertheless certain themes
which are common to the voiced opinions of many individuals or groups
with otherwise divergent views on various aspects of education, and these
are summarised briefly in this section as indicators of current general
concerns,
8.5
In the field of higher education the University and Polytechnic
Grants Committee (UPGC) has advised that the maintenance of a growth rate
of 3 per cent (revised in the interim to 4 per cent) per annum for the
universities and a ceiling of 12,000 full-time equivalent students at