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Mr Wong pointed out that membership of the Committee comprises language experts, academics, front-line educators, representatives from the business community, in particular the service industry, professionals including those with a media background and government officials.
"The balanced mix of professions and expertise of members will enable the Committee to have access to views and advice of those who fully understand the language problems and requirements of Hong Kong," he said.
"The setting up of SCOLAR will provide an institutional framework for formulating and implementing language in education policy in a coherent and systematic manner.
"It will help address an important concern to the community, especially the business and the education sectors over the declining language proficiency."
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Trailers inspection period to be further shortened
The mandatory safety inspection of trailers will be further advanced by three from December this year, Transport Department's Senior Engineer/Motor Vehicle, Mr John Blay, said today (Friday).
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"To improve the safety of trailers in use on the road, all trailers manufactured in 1989 or earlier will need to pass a roadworthiness examination before relicensing on or after December 1, 1996," he said.
This is the second time since last April to require the trailer inspection period to be shortened and hence makes the accumulated inspection time shortened by six years during 1996.
The arrangement is made possible by putting more resources to the vehicle examination team and extending the inspection time to 9 pm on weekdays, and 4 pm on Saturdays.
"This means trailers which have been used on the road for seven years would have to go through the safety inspection instead of 10 years after April's change or of 13 years before April," Mr Blay said.