8
REVIEW
Already good progress has been made towards giving post-primary education to 50 per cent of all Hong Kong's 12 to 14-year-olds. But this is only a partial objective and the intention is to give three years secondary schooling to all in this age group. This means that 184,000 more assisted places will be provided. About 20,000 of these will be in pre-vocational schools, some will be in government secondary technical schools and some in private school places bought by the government.
It is also planned to double the percentage of places in secondary schools for the full five-year courses leading to a Certificate of Education Examination. This will mean an extra 55,000 places.
To handle the increased demand for technical training, there will be at least four more technical institutes by 1977 with the first two operational by 1975. By 1980, the total number might be as high as eight.
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To staff this expansion, the output of the three existing teacher training colleges will be stepped up by 1976.
This programme will go
hand in hand with a review of the whole field of second- ary education including curricula and the examination system.
Broadly speaking, the future pattern will be free primary education for all followed by secondary, including technical education, for children up to the age of 14. From that point, the youngster will have available expanded facilities for further secondary education, or he can choose between going into industry or qualifying in a technical institute. Those who opt for work in industry will be able to benefit from technical institutes through apprenticeship courses.
The more prosperous and sophisticated Hong Kong grows, the greater is its need for well qualified young people who can be trained for professional, technical, administrative and executive roles. But the demand for higher education by far outstrips existing facilities. The major expansion in the tertiary field will be at the new Polytechnic with a target of 8,000 full-time and 20,000 part-time students by 1978.
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Meanwhile, Hong Kong's two universities will have 6,000 places with the capa- bility of turning out 1,600 graduates a year by 1974 and present plans are to raise that to 8,400 places by 1978. Together with the Polytechnic, this means that by 1978 existing tertiary education facilities will have trebled.
These are bold plans for the future. But to succeed they must be linked to the economic prosperity of Hong Kong that has provided the resources for all that has been done in the past and must provide for everything in the future. Continued economic growth is one of the prerequisites for the well-being of the community.
There is another equally important prerequisite and it is one which until recent years seemed to be taken as a matter of course- -a sense of personal safety among the citizens. As in virtually every other community, Hong Kong has experienced an unhealthy increase in robberies with violence, many committed by young people. The suddenness and viciousness of this growth in crime has caused a surge of alarm.