TNAG-0019-FCO40-55-Brief-for-Secretary-of-State-s-discussions-with-Hong-Kong-s--1968 — Page 38

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(c) Setting up a phases programme to make both Councils bilin-

gual, and training more interpreters and translators.

3. LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL : It should be evident to the Commonwealth

Office that people in Hongkong now want some form of elected representation in the Legislative Council. Ideally, there should be Legislative Councillors who are directly elected by the people. However, if the Commonwealth Office consider that this is not ad- visable at the present time, then the present Urban Council at the very least should have four of its elected members sitting on the Legislative Council.

The recent debate on leadership in Hongkong has highlighted the need to have elected representatives in the Legislative Council. There is a serious gap between the views as expressed by the English-speaking members of the community and the non-English speaking members. A wider-based leadership than is presently re- presented by the present composition of the Executive and Legis- lative Councils is urgently required to bridge this gap.

The Civic Association subscribes to the basic political belief that there can be no taxation without representation. There can be no question about the personal integrity of the Unofficial Mem- bers in the Executive and Legislative Councils, but they are all appointed by the Governor and in the eyes of the general public do not represent the public, as they are not elected.

4. COMPULSORY PRIMARY EDUCATION: The state of primary education in

Hongkong is unsatisfactory, The Government's present policy is to provide a government or aided school place for every primary- age child seeking one. There are 24,000 vacant school places in Government and aided primary schools. Yet, many tens of thousands of poor families still do send their primary-age children to school

Free even though school is

because their children must work at home or outside to increase the family income.

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The Hongkong Civic Association proposes a compulsory but not com- pletely free primary education system, coupled with a family edu- cation subsidy plan to offset economic hardship in the family when children are compulsorily sent to school.

The following steps should be taken to introduce a compulsory pri- mary education system in Hongkong:

(a) Expand the family education subsidy plan that is already being carried out by nine voluntary agencies to enable poor families to send their children to school.