TNAG-0104-FCO40-140-Discussions-with-Governor-during-his-visits-to-UK-1969 — Page 83

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3.

(ii)

The education ordinance was already under review since it was deficient in certain respects and required strengthening; this would take at least a year to complete. There would always be a danger that once the ordinance had been strengthened, there might be a public demand for its provisions to be enforced specifically against communist schools to an extent that would be impolitic. But in view of present educational facilities in the Colony there was a clear case for tightening up generally the criteria for registration. He proposed to introduce a system of provisional registration; this would rogularise present practice under which a school applying for registration is normally permitted to begin functioning on a provisional basis until it meets and satisfies the requirements for final registration. It is the requirements for final registration that would be drawn more strictly, i.e. in regard to buildings, content of education provided, quality of staff, etc.; these matters were largely laid down by administrative regulation.

(iii) The suggestion that the Director of Education might

refuse any further applications for night primary schools was a very minor measure since such applications were extremely rare. The measure could, however, be justified on the grounds that an efficient and extensive adult education programme

now existed.

It was agreed that the Governor should continue to pursue the measures that he had put forward, consulting the department at appropriate stages and giving advance information of their application. Great care would have to be taken in the matter of their presentation. It was suggested that it might be advisable to provide in any revised legislation for provisional registration to lapse automatically after a given time unless final registration had previously been approved. This would

avoid the need to take any formal stops to close a school which failed within the stipulated period to meet the requirements for final registration.

(c) Detainees

4. The Governor explained that there were thirty-four detainees still in custody. This number included a hard core of communist Trade Unionists and other communist activists who had been responsible for bomb incidents in the course of last year's disturbances. It was becoming steadily more difficult to decide which of these remaining detainees could be released with relative safety, and it was a matter of feeling one's way in the light of circumstances at any particular time, with particular regard to security considerations. There would in any event be a hard core residue of something less than ten detainees who would have to be retained in custody for the time being. He did not expect difficulty with public opinion in Hong Kong over the question of releases of detainees provided these were seen in the Colony to be effected only when circumstances justified and permitted them: it was important that they were not seen in any way as matching the release by the Chincse of British subjects detained in China. He was convinced that the Chinese would give us no credit for wholesale releases; they were more likely to regard such a step as foolishness on our part and it would not help the cause of British detainees in China.

Paraza

Ghacked

16 HKKI/12

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/ Detainees