CO129-618-2 University of Hong Kong- grants and financial assistance 26-9-1947 - 29-9-1947 — Page 21

Sir,

Colonial University Grants

Advisory Committee,

8, Park Street,

9

London, W.1.

2nd June, 1947.

21

The Colonial University Grants Advisory Committee has completed a preliminary survey of the financial aspects of plans for the development of higher education in the Colonies. The Committee considers that its next step should be to prepare a general plan of allocation for the total funds available, so that it can achieve a balanced programme in dealing with the detailed schemes submitted to it. Before it can proceed to the preparation of such a general scheme, the Committee would be grateful for the guidance of the Secretary of State on two questions of policy:

!

(a)

(a) the limitation to £4,500,000 of the funds

available for higher education under the

Colonial Development and Welfare Act for the period until 1956;

(b) the use of the funds for recurrent as well as

for capital purposes.

Limitation of funds.

A general review of the probable claims showed that the total might amount to £8,690,000. The Committee, with advice from the Inter-University Council on the academic aspects of these claims, has attempted to reduce them to the figure of £4,500,000 and to arrange them in priorities. The Committee decided that first priority must be given to the financial assistance of institutions which were universities or moving towards the status of universities in the Colonies. Within this field the Committee found that the probable cost of developments (on some of which public statements had been made which were almost of the nature of commitments) still exceeded the available total fund of £4,500,000 by nearly 50 per cent. as shown on the attached schedule. The estimates and the relative "weighting" of the projects given in this schedule are merely a first approximation to which the Committee is in no way committed, but the Committee has been un-

able to discover ways in which the figures can be further re- duced, without jeopardizing the standards which it regards as essential to the university projects envisaged. It has not in-, cluded in these provisional estimates provision for any reserve

for. contingencies.

The Committee placed in a second priority such claims as those for financial assistance for higher education in Palestine, for higher education developments in other areas such as Central Africa, Mauritius, Fiji and Cyprus, and for the development of Territorial or Regional Colleges in West Africa. The Committee recognized the educational and political dis- advantages of relegating these claims to a lower priority and regretted the postponement or abandonment of important projects which might follow from this decision.

The Committee therefore seeks guidance on the question whether funds additional to the £4,500,000 may be made available in the period up to 1956 for the development of higher education.

(b) Recurrent...