CO129-618-3 University of Hong Kong- grants and financial assistance 6-5-1948 - 10-6-1948 — Page 44

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responsibility for the training of High School teachers will fall on the University as the Government is committed to the implementing.of the new Colonial policy (White Paper 197) which requires Colonial Governments to open all the higher services to natives of the Colony. We shall immediately have to double the number of candidates for the Diploma in Teaching. Further we are pressed to undertake, as a special responsibility of a British Colony at the main southern gate of China, the training of efficient teachers of English for China. It is proposed to give to graduates of Chinese Universities a two years course, the first mainly in English speech, writing, reading and social history; the second in principles of teaching, phonetics and especially in the methods that were used so successfully in language teaching in England during the war. It is admitted that this aspect of the

Institute's work is not directly a concern of the Colonial University Grants Committee. The University would therefore appeal only for a contribution to the purely Colonial side of the project, the necessity of providing buildings and equipment to train teachers for the Government and Aided Schools of Hong Kong. The University has not yet been able to get a sketch design and estimate, but it is improbable that a sum exceeding £20,000 towards the cost of the building and equipment would be asked of the Grants Committee.

6. Housing for Staffs.

The destruction of so great a proportion of European houses has made the housing of staff a matter of great difficulty. Houses have been repaired and whenever possible old large houses have been divided: a proceeding both forced on us and desirable in the certainty that the cost of house- keeping is permanently at least doubled. The Vice-Chancellor's house is reduced to bare walls and a partial roof. It was too big for present conditions and it has been decided to rebuild it as four flats, two for senior and two for junior men. All existing accommodation is earmarked for occupation and therefore it is necessary to build a new house for the Vice-Chancellor at a cost of about £8,000 and a block of eight flats for men still to be appointed to new posts (expatriate officers for the teaching of Architecture, Medicine, Surgery, Gynaecology, Economics, History and Psychology) at a cost of about £40,000. A grant of about £48,000 will be sought for this project.

The projects so far proposed are those that immediately should be taken in hand. Two or three years hence it is reasonably certain that an extension of Science buildings will be necessary, to give accommodation for advanced work especially in Chemistry and Marine Zoology. Library accommodation already is inadequate except for Chinese books which are housed separately in an endowed Library, and with the developments in prospect the existing library will have to be rebuilt, as the present building is not only small but is extremely badly planned for its purpose.

29th April, 1948.