REVIEW
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Meanwhile, with a view to improving the quality as well as the quantity of educational provision, teacher training courses for non-graduates have been standardized at two years duration and the introduction of third year specialist courses is being planned. Additionally, the research and guidance section of the Education Department is engaged in a comprehensive programme of experi- mental testing of primary school pupils. It is hoped as a result of this research to improve the selection procedures for entry to the government and aided secondary schools. Further research should lead to the creation of suitable tests to enable secondary schools to advise students to follow the course of study most appropriate to their abilities.
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In the 1966-7 academic year there are 983,495 school students in Hong Kong and over 2,300 schools. The government's expendi- ture on education for the year is estimated at $300 million, or 16 per cent of the government's total estimated expenditure. The primary day school enrolment is now 619,513, which repre- sents 99.8 per cent of the estimated population in the primary school age group. Of those who left primary school in July 1966, 73.7 per cent were promoted to secondary schools. At the same time 33.2 per cent of secondary school pupils who completed their school certificate examination commenced matriculation studies.
SOCIAL WELFARE
In 1966-7 government expenditure through the Social Welfare Department and subventions to voluntary agencies engaged in social welfare work amounted to $20.5 million. This is nearly five times what it was in 1956 but still only 1.1 per cent of the govern- ment's total expenditure, and represents less than $6 per head of the population. It was not until 1948 that a Social Welfare sub- section of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs emerged, and it was not until 1958 that it achieved the status of a department. The swamping of the territory with what the rest of the world termed 'refugees', and the resultant pressures exerted on both the existing and expanding facilities of the Colony, meant that apart from statutory responsibilities in the protection of women and juveniles and the supervision of probation, the work of the embryonic department was for a long time overmuch associated with the