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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
At the same time many of the private schools, which together care for over half of our school children population of 835,000, are bursting at the seams or facing the threat of high and unrealistic rentals.
Whilst urging Government to re-examine and reconsider its entire educational policy, I cannot over-emphasize the importance and urgency to give aid to private schools or their staff in the public interest to engender some sense of security. I urge again that appropriate steps be taken to halt the spiral rent increase in school premises. I further suggest that sites be made available to private schools as they are being made to housing societies, at half the upset price to enable them to acquire their own premises. Such grants of land may be made subject to restrictions to use the land for a school only, with prohibition of transfer, assignment or subletting. This will help to stabilize school fees and will be a step forward to providing education to all children of school age in Hong Kong.
Mr. Chairman, we are approaching the stage when Government must prepare a comprehensive plan to introduce compulsory primary education in Hong Kong in full co-operation with the private school system. We are faced with an unrealistic situation where in many Resettlement Estates there is a surfeit of vacant school places, yet there are thousands of children of school age who are not going to school. Preliminary surveys which have been made in two estates show that there are between 15-20% of children of primary school age who are not going to school. This is a serious social problem which must be tackled immediately by Government.
The Education Department of course has no power to insist that children should attend school if their parents find it necessary that the children should remain at home to look after their younger brothers and sisters or to do handicraft work. I would urge that the Education Department set up a departmental working committee to investigate the feasibility of having compulsory primary education in Hong Kong with the co-operation and participation of private schools.
With these remarks, Mr. Chairman, I have pleasure to support the motion before Council.
MR. K. S. Lo:- Mr. Chairman, my colleagues who have spoken before me have touched practically on every aspect of the Council's work and have dealt with them so ably that it would be presumptuous of me to duplicate their efforts. Instead I propose to-day to speak on some broader issues concerning the Colony.
First, I would like to say a few words on the Public Service.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
This Government has since 1947 adopted a policy of giving preference in appointment to suitably-qualified local applicants with their roots in the Colony. This is a laudable and far-sighted policy which has the support of us all. It has created more opportunities to the true sons of Hong Kong to participate in the middle and lower level of our Public Service. But, after 17 years of the pronouncement of this policy, the number of posts on the upper crest of the pyramid held by local officers, is still very insignificant. According to the latest report from the Establishment Branch, out of a total number of 1,518 posts in the Professional grades, 730 are still being held by expatriates. In the Administrative grades only 12 are local, against 37 overseas and in the Superscale and Upperscale grades, only 25 are local, against 170 overseas.
A number of reasons have been offered for the slow progress made, and I will be the first to agree that many of them are genuine and valid. The two main reasons given are: (1) local candidates with proper qualifications in the professional field are rare; and (2) those who have them are unwilling to join the service.
To overcome the first difficulty, Government should adopt a more liberal policy of substituting other qualifications which are obtainable locally. And I would urge Government to accelerate and intensify its policy of selecting likely candidates and sending them overseas to obtain the necessary qualifications through the scholarship scheme. I appreciate that this has already been done, but certainly not to the degree which we would like to see.
As to the second reason given, I think Government is to be blamed more than any one else. If local candidates of high calibre and good qualifications are unwilling to come forward to join the Civil Service, it is largely due to the unequal treatment in the terms of employment; and unequal opportunity for promotion after they have entered the service. It has often been said that those with good qualifications, especially in the professional field, are attracted by monetary consideration to go into business and professional practice and therefore are not interested in joining the Government. But what has not been sufficiently understood is the inequality of the present terms of employment which discourages them from joining. Here I would like to quote paragraph 238 of the Platt Salaries Commission Report, which says, "It was at one of the earliest sittings of the commission, when we interviewed the 'Senior Non-expatriate Officers' Association', that we became aware of the intensity of feeling of these officers on the question of the difference in the conditions of the service between them and their expatriate colleagues. They had points to raise about expatriation pay, leave, and holidays, housing and to some extent passages. But the expatriate allowance cut deepest and overshadowed the others.
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