EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS
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The training boards and two of the general committees (the Committee on Electronic Data Processing Training and the Committee on Management and Supervisory Training) are required to perform some or all of the following tasks in respect of the areas for which they are responsible: to determine the manpower needs and recommend measures to meet those needs, to prescribe job specifications, to design training programmes and trade tests and, where appropriate, to operate and maintain training centres or other training schemes. The Capital Works Programme for Training Centres includes the construction of two training centre complexes in Kowloon Bay and Kwai Chung to accommodate the following industries: vehicle repair and servicing, electrical, electronics, hotel, machine shop and metal working, plastics, printing, textiles, and welding. Assuming that construction, equipment installation and staff recruitment can be completed on schedule, these centres will have the capacity to offer some 9 000 mainly full-time training places from the end of 1984 or early 1985.
Additional Training Centres
In 1983 the Vocational Training Council launched a post-graduate training scheme for engineering graduates. It is designed to help engineering graduates from the universities and the Polytechnic, as well as local graduates of overseas universities, to obtain the practical training they need to complete their overall training as engineers and gain recognition for full professional status by the professional institutions.
At the government's request the council is establishing a temporary Seamen's Training Centre at Little Sai Wan to train about 5 000 serving seafarers to a level where they will meet the standard required by the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers which will come into force in April 1984.
The council has also begun the initial phase of establishing a Management Development Centre. The centre's main functions will be research into and development, co-ordination and promotion of management education and training in Hong Kong. To validate the programmes it develops, the centre will also conduct courses.
Consideration is also being given to the establishment of an Insurance Training Centre to provide courses for new entrants to the industry as well as up-dating courses for serving personnel.
Problems Unresolved
Hong Kong has certainly come a long way in the last decade or so in meeting the needs of its people for more and better education. There remains, however, a number of questions to be answered at the tertiary level. For example, should the two universities adopt the same basic degree structure of either three years, as is the case of the University of Hong Kong, or four years, as is the case of the Chinese University of Hong Kong? Should there be a common entry to Hong Kong's tertiary institutions? To what extent should the conven- tional education system be complemented by distance learning such as an open university? What should be the role of part-time and external degrees? If we are to build another university, what type of university should it be and what should our approaches be to professional education, advanced teacher training and validation of academic awards? Also what should be the role of the City Polytechnic vis-a-vis the Hong Kong Polytechnic? The list is not exhaustive.
As regards technical education and industrial training, care must be taken to ensure that the expansion is in the right direction. In a nutshell, the aim must be to match the skills taught at the technical institutes and training centres to the needs of Hong Kong's