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at all to give the man a position within a department. had to develop an overall awareness. We should go into the project more deeply, starting with the identification of the right man.
10.
Sir M MacLehose said that the main feature of Hong Kong's edu- cational development was the steady increase in secondary school assisted places. The fluctuation to which Lord Goronwy-Roberts had referred was a demographic dip in the primary school population. It was responsible for the present over-supply of primary school places. Mr Parry's Questions had perhaps been deliberately worded to compre- hend both the top of the primary school system and the bottom of the secondary school system: in recent years the enrolment of 10-12 year- olds had decreased, while the enrolment of 12-14 year-olds had increased (as Hong Kong had moved into the demographic bulge of the early 60s). Mr Haddon-Cave said that Hong Kong was at present over- provided by 200,000 primary school places. Lord Goronwy-Roberts said that it would be useful to have further figures or an explanation of this matter so that he could send a short letter to Mr Parry. This might pre-empt further Questions. It might say that while the stat- istics provided in answer to his Question suggested one situation, the truth of the matter was rather different. He and Mr Stewart would get together later to draft an interim letter while Hong Kong should pro- vide figures for a more substantive reply. Sir M MacLehose thought it must have been apparent that the figures given by Hong Kong and Whitehall in answer to Mr Parry's Questions on education might be mis- represented. It should be pointed out to Hong Kong that they might have given further thought to the presentational aspects of their Answer. Mr Stewart said that Hong Kong had tried, but the time avail-- able had not been enough. Mr David said that Hong Kong's draft replies to Mr Parry's Questions had arrived 24 hours after the deadline set by the FCO. Lord Goronwy-Roberts thought that Hong Kong's achievement in the education field was a more than usually sensitive issue at the moment. Two years or so ago MPs had been vague as to what Hong Kong had achieved: now they were very clear on its housing policy, which was eminently presentable and about which he had no complaints at all, or on ILO conventions. One difficulty lay in the comparisons which might be drawn between Hong Kong and other countries.
11. Sir M MacLehose said that education was a fairly complicated field. There was no financial constraint on it at all: the difficulties arose from the need for haste and in decisions over policy. In setting the present targets, Hong Kong had had initially to accept a certain drop in quality in some of the private schools being used, but these would be phased out in two or three years. The first priority was to get 12-14 year olds into school. He was worried over the possibility of an imbalance developing between tertiary education and the upper levels of secondary education. He was keeping a close watch over this.
There was
a Working Group due to report early next year. Meanwhile, he felt that the original finding of the White Paper was perhaps wrong: the real need was for a general education up to the age of 14 and for a much wider range of facilities thereafter for technical and practical train- ing and education. They had to see how this type of education appealed to parents. The recent Apprenticeship Ordinance had increased the number of attendances at technical institutes. He undertook that plans would be made to pick up the 11% of 12-14 year-olds for whom secondary school places had been promised but no plans had been made, and that he would
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