TNAG-0178-FCO40-214-Education-policy-1969 — Page 58

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Department of Education and Science were additionally responsible for the day to day running of the schools in the Greater London area, without any form of local advice or control.

In order to achieve this type of radical solution, the immediate problem of staffing the principal posts in the Department must be solved. It appears that promotion within the Department will only perpetuate the problems and that recruits must be brought in from outside.

Colonial service personnel from elsewhere have not proved too successful. Usually men senior enough to be considered are too near retirement age to have time to achieve anything, even if they are not so imbued with a sense of the rightness of colonial service administration as to be incapable of reforming the system.

This type of "outsider"

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and any other type that might be unearthed faces the problem of lack of knowledge of the local situation and the needs of the people here. Anyone brought in will need time to settle in before any reform can begin, and we are desperately short of time. Surely the riots of 1967, and student participation in the agitation are sufficient evidence of the

urgency.

In my view we need to recruit at least a Director, and possibly several other senior administrators, on special contracts from right outside the Colonial service. These men should be given a special mandate to reform the Department, and time enough to do it.

Probably the best first step would be an invitation from the Government to a capable educator from Britain, to visit Hong Kong in the next month or two, specifically to review our need for senior staff, and to advise on the recruit- ment of suitable persons.