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granted that record may not seem to be very impressive. But if you judge it against the enormous growth in our school population, which has more than matched the five fold rise in our population in general,
the size of the achievement is more evident.
In spite of that achievement these remain a long way to go
before we can consider our education system satisfactory. We are much
concerned to improve the quality of secondary education, and we are
still sadly short of places in Hong Kong for students who wish to move
on to higher education. Our two universities are now being expanded
to provide both greater opportunity for students to study at this level. and to provide the trained professionals which Hong Kong needs.
The
Hong Kong Polytechnic, founded in 1972, has already expanded to the
point where it accommodates 11,000 full-time and equivalent part-time
students and this figure will shortly reach 13,500. We are now planning
another polytechnic which may eventually reach the same size,, and I hope
it will be possible to commence some courses next year.
We shall not of course stop there. Our aim is to expand our
educational facilities and to improve them. With this in mind we
recently commissioned, with the assistance of the O.E.C.D., a report by an international group of people highly qualified in these matters
to advise us on the future of our education system. This report is now
being studied and will I hope be published shortly for wider discussion.
Medical and Health Services
In the field of medicine and health, we aim at a balanced programme, which covers preventive, curative and rehabilitation services. Through improved sanitation, immunization programme, epidemiological surveillance and primary health coverage the Hong Kong health services have been able to contain the major communicable diseases. Bearing in mind the geographical location of Hong Kong, the speed and volume of international traffic and the fact that many of these communicable diseases are still present in a number of neighbouring countries, the task of keeping Hong Kong free from epidemics is enormous, and our achievement is something of which we are justifiably proud.
The common childhood communicable diseases such as diptheria, measles, whooping cough and poliomyelitis have either been eradicated or brought under control. Tuberculosis among young children is now very
/rarely seen
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