ODE 18-77
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Ms Marsden (Hong Kong Department)
BRITISH COUNCIL
1.
The three proposals relating to Hong Kong at the end of the letter from Sir Richard Francis refer. I would need more information before commenting on 3. It is not clear to me what the scheme is. On 1 or 2, both would clearly be most welcome. Both would also clearly be most expensive.
2.
An endowment for a research facility in the new University could cost more than, say, £15m. To be meaningful it would have to. The University itself is likely to cost about £250m, so anything less will not be impressive. I presume that an endowment of this side would not be rooted through the BC.
3.
An education trust is probably more feasible and could put us in a good light. We do have the HK/UK Scholarship Scheme and this could certainly be expanded. It will only cater for about 25 students at any one time not a lot. I think that a scheme providing full scholarships for a fewer number of people is preferable to a shotgun approach. It could also be "socially engineered", so that not only rich kids benefitted (ie ones who went to good schools in Hong Kong). We could also consider extending the UK/HK Scheme to pretertiary education. But again, for every £lm endowment about only 10 people can benefit. It really is a drop in the ocean.
4 October 1989
M Stone
Hong Kong Department
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