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EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS
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Paper on the subject in 1978. This improved the quantitative and qualitative targets for the 1980s, a major target now being to provide subsidised senior secondary places for about 60 per cent of the 15-year-old population in 1981, rising to more than 70 per cent by 1986. Teacher education was to be further strengthened, the school curriculum enriched and the facilities and support services available to schools improved.
Balanced Development
In the 1970s particular emphasis was placed on the balanced development of general, practical and cultural subjects in the school curriculum and, in order specifically to strengthen and develop practical and technical education, prevocational schools were established. Five technical institutes were built and equipped to offer a wide range of disciplines, and the Hong Kong Technical College became the nucleus of the Hong Kong Polytechnic, which by the end of the decade was providing places for about 26 000 full-time and part-time students. There was thus a continuous link between vocational and technical education throughout the secondary system, leading to a technological outlet in tertiary education.
Concurrent with plans for the development of the senior secondary and tertiary system in the late 1970s was a comprehensive policy on rehabilitation in the 1977 White Paper Integrating the Disabled into the Community: a United Effort, which included a co-ordinated plan for the development of special education, training and related services. Plans for the development of personal social work among young people in Hong Kong were also formulated and were presented as an integral part of the 1979 White Paper Social Welfare into the 1980s.
In recognition of the principle that investment in the young is valuable not only for its own sake but for the continued well-being of Hong Kong, the government published a White Paper in 1981 concerning services to children aged from three to 11. Entitled Primary Education and Pre-primary Services, the White Paper announced a package of measures designed to improve standards in child-care centres, kindergartens and primary schools. These included the introduction of a fee-assistance scheme for pre-primary children, reduction of class sizes and a comprehensive programme of teacher training and curriculum development for kindergartens, re-training and refresher programmes for primary teachers, the strengthening of moral education, the expansion of the child-centred 'Activity Approach' and a reduction in the size of classes adopting the approach, together with improved resource materials and services including the establishment of class libraries. Because of the wide range of ability in the intake of children to primary schools, it was also decided to increase the staffing ratios of primary schools to enable them to provide remedial teaching programmes in the three basic subjects of Chinese, English and Mathematics. A system for the control of entry to primary schools was also set out in the 1981 White Paper. This was designed specifically to eliminate competitive entrance tests and so reduce the pressures imposed on young children by the intense competition to enter popular primary schools, which was also having adverse effects on kindergarten education.
In late 1981 an Education Branch was established in the Government Secretariat. The appointment of a Secretary for Education reflected government recognition of the rapid development of education, the increasing complexities of its administration and its crucial importance in the future development of Hong Kong. In 1983 the Secretary's brief was extended to include manpower, and its development, thus securing both a closer co- ordination between education provision and the needs of the economy and an overview by one policy Secretary of the balance between social and economic demand in education.