XN000022-1972-03-15 — Page 26

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Wednesday, March 15, 1972

HUMAN INVESTMENT IMPORTANT IN INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT

More Technicians And Craftsmen Training Facilities Needed

Human investment is even more important than financial investment in

the development of industry, Dr, the Honourable S.Y. Chung said today.

He was speaking in the Legislative Council when the debate on the

Budget was resumed.

"Therefore, we should and must make adequate investment in the development

of our human resources through technical education," he added.

Dr. Chung stressed that by technical education he meant technical

education at all levels

technologists and professional engineers, technicians

and technician engineers, craftsmen and machine operators.

He said the deficiency lay at the lower levels of technical institutes

and vocational schools.

The Hong Kong Polytechnic would take care of 4,000 full-time and

20,000 part time students by 1975.

He pointed out that based on the scale factor alone, without the

application of the sophistication factor, Hong Kong would need eight technical

institutes by 1976.

"The provision of only three such institutes is completely out of

proportion," he added.

He said he personally could not agree with the arguments of the Director

of Education that the surveys conducted by the Industrial Training Advisory

Committee had not been really accurate and rather out of date.

/He pointed