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either event this would enable Government to buy more
Form 4 and 5 places from the private sector and possibly
permit the JSEA to be phased out at an earlier date. Government will explore the possibility of encouraging
private secondary schools to do so.
I thank Dr Ho Kam-fai and Dr Henrietta Ip for
drawing our attention again to the importance of
vocational and technical education. The Government is
determined to provide a balanced development of general and vocational education at the post-Form 3 level to meet different student aptitude as well as the
community's needs for different educated talents, and to
make these two equally important forms of education
attractive to Form 3 leavers. The Government is obliged
to the Vocational Training Council, chaired by
Mr Francis Tien, for its proposal to introduce full-time
bridging courses in the technical institutes to enable
selected capable graduates of one-year full-time
craft-level courses to be admitted to technician
courses. The first bridging course will be offered as a
pilot scheme in the academic year 1985-86 and the Administration will study the results of this pilot
scheme to determine whether it should be implemented on
a wider scale.
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