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accepted by the Finance Committee of the legislature. Now, but only now, therefore, is it possible to proceed.
Compulsory primary education, of course, is
only really practicable after a fee-free system has been introduced. Even so, all the professional advice available to us whether from the Department, unofficial educators or visiting specialists is against the introduction here of comprehensive compulsory education measures on orthodox lines at present. Compulsion of this kind is, quite simply, still unenforceable in the Hong Kong context to an extent which would reduce any such measures to farce. The bi-sessional system of primary schools, by which alone we can cope with the numbers, render truancy very difficult to identify. There are the large numbers of children of fisher-folk and boat people who base themselves partly here and partly in China, a situation difficult to cover in legislation; there are still a few very remote villages whose children can be assisted to school but not easily compelled; there are other sociological factors rooted in Chinese attitudes and customs which would make a system of compulsory primary education, if it were to be fully enforced now, resented and opposed by too many for comfort.
There is also the problem of the communist schools, whose curricula would have to be formally accepted as satisfactory for the purposes of the law, when we all know they are not. To have to take the view that attendance at these schools was acceptable might be nearly as damaging to public confidence as to refuse to take it, and hence to have to force the children into other schools, would be to our relations with China. There are other problems also.
Such a measure, then, if introduced, could only be an openly acknowledged window-dressing measure, widely unenforced. I do not think the law officers here would feel able to recommend the introduction of
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