XN000022-1972-10-18 — Page 11

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Wednesday, October 18, 1972

INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL WORK TRAINING ANNOUNCED

The Governor, Sir Murray MacLehose, announced today that an Institute

for Social Work Training is to be set up in the Lady Trench Training Centre,

and the first students will be admitted next year.

He told the Legislative Council that this Institute would provide

two-year courses leading to a diploma or certificate in social work, and would

be open alike to those proposing to enter government service or to work in the

voluntary sector.

The Lady Trench Centre was already providing in-service training

for both government and voluntary agency workers, and it was desirable that

the new Institute should be under the same roof so that the Centre could

function as the "power house of training and ideas for the development of

social welfare work in Hong Kong."

Hong Kong, he said, had been well served by the social work departments

of the two universities, but there was now a great need for training below

the university level to cope with comprehensive plans for the expansion of

social welfare in the immediate future.

And this could not be achieved without a corps of trained professionals

to carry it out.

Sir Murray said the days were over when social welfare in Hong Kong

could be regarded as emergency service.

"If social welfare is to play its part in our much more sophisticated

and economically advanced community, expertise and professionalism will be

increasingly necessary," he commented,

He then