6
XXD
400
Education
EXPANSION and improvement continued to characterise the field of education throughout 1981. This was in accordance with the policy set out in the 1978 White Paper on the Development of Senior Secondary and Tertiary Education. Some $3,700 million was provided for education in the government's estimates of expenditure for 1981-2, representing 13 per cent of the total budget for Hong Kong.
On September 1, a new Education Branch was created in the Government Secretariat and a Secretary for Education was appointed.
A further highlight of the year was the government's announcement, in June, of a $320 million programme of co-ordinated measures to improve the standard of the Chinese and English languages in schools, and in the community. This programme included the revision of language syllabuses to give students more opportunity to use Chinese and English, pur- posefully, as a tool of communication; the provision of a wire-free induction loop system to support language lessons in primary and secondary schools; research projects into problems of language in education; the proposal for a language and communication course in the sixth-form curriculum to strengthen students' skills in Chinese and English to prepare them for further education or employment; the establishment, in 1982, of an Institute of Lan- guage in Education to train or re-train non-graduate teachers of Chinese and English in specialist language-teaching skills; the provision of additional teachers in secondary schools for remedial language teaching from September, 1982; and the setting-up of a working party to study the feasibility of establishing an independent Chinese Language Foundation to pro- mote and facilitate the use of Chinese as a tool for communication, study, work and leisure. To look after the needs of children attending child-care centres, kindergartens and primary schools and to up-grade the services provided for them, a package of improve- ments was announced in the White Paper on Primary Education and Pre-primary Services published in July. These measures took into account the views on the 1980 Green Paper which were expressed by members of the public and educational and welfare bodies. The package included an improved fee assistance scheme for low-income families with children requiring pre-primary services; an improved staffing formula for primary schools; provi- sion of additional basic equipment and materials for primary schools; a modified scheme for controlling entry to primary schools (to be introduced in 1983); and improvements in the standard of rural education. While these measures represented a considerable step forward in qualitative terms, the government intends to keep them under regular review and make further improvements as, and when, resources become available.
The White Paper on Primary Education and Pre-primary Services marked the comple- tion of the current reviews of the Hong Kong education system which started in 1974 with the White Paper entitled Secondary Education in Hong Kong Over the Next Decade. The time was therefore considered to be ripe for an overall review of the entire education