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and VII. So perhaps the Committee would like to know the reason or reasons for the failure after 1978 to follow the guidelines of the
White Paper on the development of senior secondary and tertiary 4 education and to formulate criteria for determining school fees and the frequency with which they should be reviewed. May we have your
explanation please.
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D of E:
Mr Chairman, if I may
CHAIRMAN:
Sure, Mr Leung.
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D of E:
give an explanation to this question.
If I could start perhaps with the background to the education policy 14 since the 1960s to put the matter in some perspective. In the '65 15 White Paper it is Government policy to provide subsidised education
16 for an increasing number of primary and secondary pupils. In 1969 17 fees were in fact reduced in primary schools to pave the way for
free primary education up to Primary 6. In 1971 free universal
primary education was achieved, and then beyond that Government
further expanded junior secondary education so that by 1978 we have
achieved three years of free universal junior secondary education.
22 That means by that year, nine years of free universal and compulsory 23 education was achieved by the Government for the benefit of Hong Kong.
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at.
Now it was against this background that fees must be looked
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Members might remember that in relation to these White Papers and 27 policy changes, fees have always been part of policy changes, in other 28 words fees were not separate from or independent of policy changes. 29 Over the last 26 years we have always put fees in relation to improve-
30 ments in our policy in education and this has always been the case.
Now it is a policy and there is no misunderstanding about it, this is a Government policy and fees are not treated separately.
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In relation to Mr Lee's question, it is true that in the '78 White Paper there was this particular bit on the Government should
prepare a proportion of the cost to be borne by the public sector, by
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