CO129-594-1 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University. For extracted photographs see CN 3-45- Advisory Committee report 29-3-1946 - 3-7-1946 — Page 174

Short-tera Policy.

Is a University necessary for ilong Kong ?

considered this large question afresh and endorses the opinion of the Foreign Office recorded in the Memorandum to the War Cabinet already referred to, that "the Univer- sity in a valuable instrument for propagating British ideals and spreading British influence in China and that it should be given all the support and assistance possible in increasing its usefulness in this respect”. The Memorandum adds "The outbreak of war made it impracticable however, to pursue the question of financial assistance and expansion." The war having ended, the Committee conceives it to be its function to make recommendation on this matter for the renewed consideration of H.M. Government.

6. But under its Terms of Reference the Committee must consider also the immediate re-establishing of an institution adequate to meet the needs of the Colony, Demands from Hong Kong for an early resumption of teach- ing are natural and must receive sympathetic consideration. The two questions to which the Committee addressed itself were (1) is a University really necessary to meet merely Colonial needs? and (2) if it is, how can it be re- stored to activity with the greatest speed without unduly complicating the other issue, the planning of a University which could play a worthy part in the renascence of civil life and institutions in China?

7. The Committee had first to consider whether, in fact, a University for purely Colonial needs was not an extrava- ganoe. Hitherto about one third of the University's students have been drawn from Malaya and the Dutch Indios; in the years 1929 - 39, 1,421 out of a total of 4,320. Hereafter most of the students from these places and a proportion of the other 325 overseas Chinese who in the same period attended the University will almost certainly seek admission to the halaya University which, we under- stand, is projected. In the same period 1,288 Chinese students came from all parts of China, though a large pro- portion of the 753 Cantonese shown in the table below $ had attended schools in Hong Kong for the sake of the more effective English teaching. Of the 451 European and Jewish students only a proportion came from schools in China.