CO129-591-3 Education Department- revised grant code 24-10-1945 - 11-12-1945 — Page 61

A MEMORANDUM ON THE NEW GRANT CODE.

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ΑΙ

A new Grant Code was brought into operation in Hongkong as from

September 1941. Throughout prolonged negotiations while the Code was being

prepared, the Grant Schools Council, representing all Roman Catholic and

Anglican schools, voiced its unanimous and emphatic opposition not merely to

this or that particular provision, but to the basic principle on which the Code

is constructed. Our actual experience in trying to work this Code, though short,

has but confirmed us in our convictions.

Accordingly, having heard that the Jode has not yet received the

final approval of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, at a meeting held

on November 17th 1945 the Grant Schools Council unanimously agreed to request

that such final approval be not given until the Grant Schools have had an

opportunity to put before the Secretary of State the reasons for our opposition.

Hongkong, after four years of Japanese occupation, has embarked on a

programme of reconstruction, determined to remedy the mistakes of the past. We

submit that it will augur ill for the future of education if the Grant Schools,

which are responsible for such a large proportion of the best education in the

Colony, are forced to work a Code with which they are fundamentally at variance.

By agreement between the Catholic and Anglican schools we are

presenting separate Memoranda in the belief that we can thus put more convincingly

the defects of the new Code, defects which for the most part derive from the

basic principle on which the Grant is to be calculated though affecting

different schools in different ways.

EXCESSIVE CONTROL OF AIDED SCHOOLS

This basic principle is that the Grant to be given each school

shall be the difference between the approved expenditure and the income from

school fees as estimated in advance for a period of three years. (Code Part 1 n.7).

The Code therefore requires in fact that the previous approval

of the Director of Education be obtained for every item of expenditure on

ordinary school activities whether paid for out of Government money or out of

fees received from the pupils. While such control over all items of expenditure

may rightly be exercised over schools owned by the Government and managed by

Government officials, we submit that it is an unwarranted invasion of the

liberty of private schools.