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# A BRIEF HISTORY OF
TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN HONG KONG
DAN WATERS
As early as 1863 vocational training in carpentry, tailoring, shoemaking, printing, bookbinding and gardening was provided for twelve boys. Numbers later reached thirty. Classes were held in a Chinese building, under a Father Raimondi, not far from the Mission House in Wellington Street.
Also, in the late 1870s, up to 100 boys, in addition to their native language, were taught carpentry, shoemaking and printing by brothers at the Roman Catholic reformatory at West Point. The destitute children, some of whom were Portuguese and came from Macau, learned gardening and played games after school.
The first annual prize distribution of the Li Shing Scientific and Industrial College (*) was held in January 1905. Over seventy students had enrolled but by examination time only thirty-five remained. The founders felt the purpose of the establishment was to help raise China from her low industrial condition' and to educate her sons in modern science and industry and train them to use their hands as well as their brains.
'We hope to train dependent workers and not mere "hands"
to be always under the direction of foreigners.'
The aim of most schools in Hong Kong was to train clerks and compradores.
During the Governorship of Sir Matthew Nathan (1904 to 1907) the Government began to show interest in elementary technical education. This culminated in the founding of the Technical Institute in 1907. This establishment was different to the eight technical institutes run by the Vocational Training Council we know today. The Technical Institute which was established in 1907 formed a sub-department under the Director of Education. It had no building of its own but was housed at