XN000022-1996-11-06 — Page 3

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Governor: No, certainly not. We've set out our position very plainly. I think these things are best discussed confidentially and I thought the remarks that were made were very unhelpful and that is why we protested in strong terms to Chinese officials. I think the whole community recognises that there should be some, I repeat some advance personnel for the PLA in Hong Kong to learn about sites and to secure military sites before the first of July, 1997. But those numbers don't need to be large, they don't need to arrive until rather later and they must certainly be subject to the laws of Hong Kong and I can see no justification for people carrying weapons.

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Need to safeguard students from biased political information

The Administration sees the need to retain legislative power to make regulations to control the dissemination of information, or expression of opinion, of a clearly biased political nature in schools.

This was stated today (Wednesday) by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Joseph W P Wong in response to a Member's Bill introduced by the Hon Christine Loh in the Legislative Council to repeal section 84(1)(m) of the Education Ordinance and regulation 98(2) of the Education Regulations.

"The provisions should be retained in some form to safeguard the interests of the students. Therefore we do not support repealing these provisions. However, we are prepared to consider appropriate amendments to the wording of the existing provisions," Mr Wong said.

He pointed out that the Education Department has issued circulars to schools stressing the need to present a balanced view and to educate students to think for themselves. "These have been supplemented by the new guidelines on civic education issued in September 1996 emphasising the importance of developing students' critical thinking," Mr Wong said.

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