REVIEW
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contributions to its agencies. But it has been more than matched by the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club which since 1961 has donated $151 million in contributions towards a wide variety of public welfare projects and amenities, many of them in the Public Works Programme.
These various activities, in which voluntary agencies have played such a leading part, have gone some way towards relieving not only those who are in financial need but also the blind, deaf, aged and other handicapped people. More, however, must be done, partic- ularly for handicapped children. There are at present 31 special schools for handicapped children and 30 special classes in govern- ment primary schools for slow learners. But the estimate is that there are some 130,000 handicapped children (including the educa- tionally sub-normal) and plans for developing further school places for them are under consideration.
Facilities for normal education in general have, in contrast, expand- ed considerably. The number of pupils enrolled in primary schools grew
from 484,000 in 1961 to 764,313 in 1971 and there is now an aided primary school place for every child of primary school age (in fact by a quirk of imbalance of ages, there are substantially more children in primary classes than there are children of accepted primary age). In the past, a system of fee remission had ensured that any parent in financial need was not required to pay school fees for his children. This was taken a step further in 1971 with the provision of free education in government, and the vast majority of government-aided, Chinese primary schools. The Director of Education has also been empowered to require parents to send their children to a designated primary school, and parents who fail could be committing an offence. Although English speaking schools are still expensive, the new policy virtually amounts to universal free, compulsory primary education and it means that no child need reasonably be deprived of this opportunity.
In 1965 a White Paper on Education recommended the provision of places in government secondary schools, or subsidised places in selected private schools, for 15-20 per cent of all pupils who finished their primary course. In 1971 a fresh target was set, to provide at least three years of post-primary education for all children aged between 12 and 14 years who want it. The first phase of this opera- tion, for half the children in this age group, will be achieved by 1976. At present there are 72,500 government and government-aided places in Forms I-III, so that a further 91,100 aided places will be required by then.
URBAN COME
TARIES