XN000022-1978-01-19 — Page 7

all.

We have entered an era of secondary education without fees for

It is obviously desirable, but less obviously it does involve complications and justments. I look to schools such as the Dioceser Girls' School and bodies such as the Sheng Kong Yui to plunge into this new and demanding enterprise wholeheartedly with the rest of the ed ca- tional community. In particular I look for the actting of standarūs; I do not mean the kind of standards that can only be attained by & COM- bination of exceptionally gifted teachers and outstandingly able pupils from wealthy and scholarly homes; I mean solidly professional standards that can and must be attained by millions of pupils and thousands of teachers from average backgrounds. This is the great challenge of the

years ahead.

Thanks in large part to the efforts of school and voluntary bodies such as yours, Hong Kong has an enviable record in educɛ tion and

We now need a massive expansion, and we a firm basis on which to build. need it quickly this is both socially right and economically impare tive.

To succeed we also need to work: for a good balance between

academic and practical action in our secondary schoole. The Diocesan Girls' School does a particularl fine job here by strcacing the importance of practical subjects like music, art and foneetic science, but at the same time maintaining an admirable standard on acadonio subiccts. Education is not only the acquisition of particular skills but the encouragement of a student's ability to develop skills and to understand his or her own potential. So the wider and better balanced the curriculum the greater the chance of striking in each student a chord of special

interest or self-knowledge.

The Diocesan