84. We next considered how best to accelerate the building pro- gramme. Appendices VIII and IX show the detailed processes required and that the average time required to build standard secondary school projects is some 46 months. We have taken as our examples recently completed projects where nothing untoward occurred during the period of processing and building the projects.
85. The most lengthy of the procedures is that concerned with the actual allocation of a site-some 15 months for an aided school project and some 12 months for a Government school project. Since the designing of a school must await the allocation of the site, we recommend that Government reduce the time taken to allocate sites without prejudice to the public interest.
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86. The main types of school buildings needed are for secondary technical and pre-vocational schools which require a large proportion of special rooms and workshops. This feature makes it difficult to convert under-enrolled existing school premises for these purposes and it is our view that this could not be effectively done.
87. Consideration has been given to what has been done overseas through extensive use of various types of pre-fabricated buildings. However, Hong Kong's lack of space resulting in the need for high rise buildings, the difficult and steep nature of the majority of sites remaining for development, and the violent weather conditions demand school buildings of substantial construction. Nevertheless, it is recom- mended that the appropriate authorities keep abreast of all future developments in building techniques in order to assess their suitability for Hong Kong.
88. A building programme of the following order will be required between now and 1981 to meet the interim objectives we have recommended. It should be noted that this programme takes no account of the need to provide a balanced distribution of numbers and types of schools in each locality.
A. For 5-year places, 29 grammar schools and 58 secondary
technical schools.
B. For 3-year places, 5 asymmetrical schools and 43 pre-vocational
schools.
This building programme within the time scale 1973-81 represents an average annual production of 15 schools.
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