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Wednesday, October 18, 1972
INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL WORK TRAINING ANNOUNCED
The Governor, Sir Murray MacLehose, announced today that an Institute
for Social Work Training is to be set up in the Lady Trench Training Centre,
and the first students will be admitted next year.
He told the Legislative Council that this Institute would provide
two-year courses leading to a diploma or certificate in social work, and would
be open alike to those proposing to enter government service or to work in the
voluntary sector.
The Lady Trench Centre was already providing in-service training
for both government and voluntary agency workers, and it was desirable that
the new Institute should be under the same roof so that the Centre could
function as the "power house of training and ideas for the development of
social welfare work in Hong Kong."
Hong Kong, he said, had been well served by the social work departments
of the two universities, but there was now a great need for training below
the university level to cope with comprehensive plans for the expansion of
social welfare in the immediate future.
And this could not be achieved without a corps of trained professionals
to carry it out.
Sir Murray said the days were over when social welfare in Hong Kong
could be regarded as emergency service.
"If social welfare is to play its part in our much more sophisticated
and economically advanced community, expertise and professionalism will be
increasingly necessary," he commented,
He then