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Wednesday, November 15, 1972
SCHOOLS CAN BE MADE BETTER
The year 1973 will see an average of a new secondary school,
completed every fortnight, and the Government will thus be able to
provide aided secondary education to an even greater proportion of primary
school leavers.
The Director of Education, the Hon. J. Canning, told the
Legislative Council today that this year, it was possible to allocate
places in government and aided schools and places purchased in private
schools to 44 per cent of the pupils who entered the Secondary Schools
Entrance Examination.
We shall do even better next year as we can reasonably expect
that 26 new secondary schools will be completed in 1973," he said.
He said he has every confidence that it will be possible to
achieve the interim target of three years post-primary education for
50 per cent of all children in the 12-14 age group by 1976.
Mr. Canning said urgent steps are being taken to reconstitute the
Board of Education, and it is hoped that a full and detailed paper will
soon be presented to the Board outlining the programme for secondary
expansion.
The targets which the Government is setting itself would need huge
capital and recurrent expenditures and it will be necessary for voluntary
agencies engaged in education to extend their efforts considerably if
the great tasks lying ahead are to be accomplished, he added.
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