TNAG-0280-FCO40-316-Visit-of-Parliamentary-under-Secretary-of-Foreign-and-Common-1970 — Page 9

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suitable moment in the school year early in 1971. Sufficien. (broadly speaking) such aided primary school places are becoming available to accommodate the one-sixth

of the population who are of primary school age: the teachers needed can we think be found, and will be assisted

by early 1971 by a system of educational TV broadcasts; and the economy (faced with paying for a truly free system, since no educational rate is raised) can stand the cost (at 15 million per annum) of reducing the present fee from (unless remitted) 27/- per annum to nil: provided of course

our revenues do not deteriorate sharply as a result of the

restrictions looming from so many directions on our trade.

3. Finally, the costs (at 250 million capital costs and #63 million per annum recurrent costs) of a further massive step forward in post-primary education, aimed at providing 3 years aided post-primary schooling for all desiring it, have been taken into account and accepted by the Finance Committee of the legislature. Now, but only

now, therefore, is it possible to proceed.

4。 Compulsory primary education, of course, is only really practicable after a fee-free system has been intro- duced. Even so, all the professional advice available to

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 legis- lation; there are still a few very remote villages whose children can be assisted to school but noe easily compelled; there are other sociological factors rooted in Chinese

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