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Hong Kong: Secretary of State's Telephone Conversation with
Chairman of British Council
Thank you for your brief of 8 January (and thank you to Mr Paul for his supplementary of 9 January). The Secretary of State duly spoke to Sir David Orr on the telephone on
9 January. Sir D Orr said that English language teaching was going well in Hong Kong.
The British Council had 30,000
students, they had opened a new office in the New Territories and planned to open a training centre in Kowloon. they were in an expanding mode.
In short
Sir D Orr said that the British Council was using £500,000 of new money plus £250,000 from their previous budget to set up an educational trust. They hoped to get matching sponsorship from industry. The aim would be to send Hong Kong's future leaders to Britain for post graduate studies.
Sir D Orr said that Hong Kong's new University of Science and Technology would be "quite a show place". The Vice-Chancellor was first class. The University had strong support from Cable & Wireless and local tycoons. It would be an excellent mark of British interest in education, especially in science and technology, if HMG were to make a donation of say £5-10 million to endow a laboratory or a department.
The Secretary of State said that these were imaginative initiatives. He was not yet in a position to give an answer on the question of an endowment for the University because he had not yet been able to study the proposal.
Sir D Orr touched briefly on the question of the British Council's locally engaged staff in Hong Kong and their eligibility under the nationality package. The British Council had a number of excellent local people who had served them for many years. The Secretary of State spoke as briefed.
Sir D Orr said that if we intended to gather future British representation in Hong Kong together in one building, the British Council would like to be considered as a participant. He acknowledged that the British Council views on cohabitation with Government offices around the world were "ambivalent"; but they were definitely interested in this
case.
/The Secretary
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