XN000022-1974-03-06 — Page 3

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Wednesday, March 6, 1974

At present, Mr. Bray said, 80 per cent of primary school leavers

go on with their education. This high figure surprised him, "but the

sobering thought is that 20 per cent of these kids in the top forms of

primary schools now have only one more term's schooling in their lives."

He said the hard facts are three years old. At the 1971 Census,

the education gap comprised 46,000 children aged 12-14 not at school

15 per cent of this age group. A total of 31,000 of them were at work

of some sort and 16,000 were not.

Describing some of the schemes being considered in the meantime,

Mr. Bray said the first problem was to find out where those children were.

This would involve some form of registration, and one idea was

being oxamined to organise a three-day excursion to a holiday camp during

school time so that as many 12 to 14 year children as possible could attend

and be registered by City District Office staff.

This could then be accompanied by setting up a network of trained

Community Recreation Officers throughout Hong Kong's 17 administrative districts.

Mr. Bray said this had already been endorsed by the Council for

Recreation and Sport and, if accepted, could start to make itself felt

in the autum.

The aim, he expalined, was to organise recreation and sport for people

who are not in school. The 12-14 age group would be the main target but not

the only one.

"Recreation grounds are not well used at the monont except by

school-based recreation, "he said, "and this scheme is aiming at full use of

the recreation grounds we have."

Recreation alone, however, would not do the job and two other lines

of approach are being looked at.

The first******