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Monday, May 8, 1972
"Government's task is to provide the facilities.
This we are
determined to do at all levels from pre-vocational schools, through
technical institutes right up to the polytechnic.
"To achieve this the Education Department must build schools
and institutes, train and recruit the teachers and plan the curicula; the
Polytechnic Board must bring that institution into commission as soon as
possible. The Labour Department must organise more apprenticeship training
schemes. All this must of course be done in the closest collaboration with
industry in which the future of our young people lies. "
Task
"But there is another task which Government alone cannot perform.
That is to persuade parents and young people alike of the intrinsic merit
and social acceptability of education which has a technical rather than an
academic bias. They should see this form of education as highly desirable
in itself and not as a second best.
skills
"It is not only that we need young people trained in practical
though Hong Kong would greatly benefit from this. But I think
many young people would develop more quickly and with greater satisfaction
if they adopted the disciplines of the skilled craftsman as technician
rather than those of a scholar, and saw this as a respectable and desirable
vocation in life.
"Both
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