EDUCATION
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Because the number of teenagers in Hong Kong will decline during the 1980s, the number of Form IV places provided in 1981 will cater for an increasing proportion of the 15-year-old age group. In 1986, places will be available for 63 per cent of this age group. With the build-up of the four existing technical institutes and the opening of new ones in Kowloon Tong in 1979, and, subject to demand, at Tuen Mun in the early 1980s, there will be an opportunity for more than 80 per cent of the 15-year-old age group to continue their education in schools and technical institutes.
Other types of public-sector places will be provided for Form III leavers in adult education centres, in special schools and in certain specialist institutions. However, some students may choose to go to private independent schools even when sufficient publicly-provided places are available.
The government also will provide a subsidised Form VI place for a third of the students entering Form IV two years earlier. Therefore, by 1986, almost 20 per cent of students in the 17-year-old age group will be able to proceed to a subsidised Form VI education, compared with some five per cent at present.
The increase in the number of fully-aided and per caput grant schools will enable more students to receive their secondary education in schools with purpose-built accommodation, sufficient laboratory and workshop facilities, and the resources to employ trained teachers of good calibre. The Green Paper recommends the progressive increase of assistance to these schools to enable them to improve their standards, and also makes various proposals to improve the quality of secondary education at all stages, including:
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Extending educational television, in colour, to the senior secondary curriculum, and providing resources to develop other audio-visual services and to expand school libraries;
Improving teacher training by raising entrance standards to the colleges of education and by extending the basic pre-service training course to three years; Encouraging university graduates who enter the teaching profession to take teacher-training courses; and
Developing a systematic in-service retraining programme for teachers.
The proportion of students taking up tertiary courses provided, or wholly sub- vented, by the government will almost double over the next decade. The university student population will rise to 10,330 by the 1980–1 academic year, and will thereafter increase by about three per cent a year so that it exceeds 12,000 by the mid-1980s. The polytechnic, which has expanded rapidly in recent years, is expected to register a growth rate of five per cent a year from 1978-81 before stabilising at a total population of about 29,600 students by all modes of attendance. It will continue to be the main provider of courses at technician level, although such courses also are provided by technical institutes. Colleges registered under the Post-Secondary Colleges Ordinance are to remain private institutions, and the government will continue to provide limited assistance to needy students.
The Green Paper also sets out proposals to improve the operating standards of the Education Department's adult education courses by keeping under review pay rates for teaching staff and by arranging for evening students to have access to school laboratories and other special facilities. In addition, the adult education curriculum will be further developed and the administration strengthened.