TNAG-0645-FCO40-793-Employment-of-children-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 28

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DRAFT

LETTER

ASSIFICATION

To:-

pret.

ntial.

ed.

lified.

『t,

Sir Murray MacLehose GBE KCMG KCVO Governor & Commander-in-Chief HONG KONG

Type 1 +

}

From

Lord Goronwy-Roberts

1

Telephone No. Ext.

C

- Department

KING

...In Confidence

1.

Thank you for your letter of 13 July. I agree that

I do not think bat we ove our objectives are the same but we do not appear to be in total agreement as to the means by which these objectives can be achieved.

༄།༣ "

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j

2. Your present system of subsidies goes part of the way to meeting the problem of giving secondary education to the children of poor parents .but I wonder whether it goes far enough. It is inevitable, however, that the operation of a means test to determine eligibility for and the amount of subsidy will deter some parents from permitting their children to stay on at school after the age of 12. For families in straitened circumstances there may well be a temptation to forgo education in favour of clandestine employment and earnings. This temptation could only be overcome if the law made attendance at school compulsory at least up to the minimum permissable age of employment. Furthermore, given your plans to increase the number of secondary places, the cost of subsidies is bound to increase as increasing numbers of poorer children take up secondary places. Indeed, a point could well be reached where the cost of administering the present means test would be disproportionate to the benefits given.

3. I agree, of course, that free education will benefit the better off as well as the less well off but in the

interests of ensuring education, for all this is

could, of vicently, acceptable and in any case ean be offset by an increase in taxation.

4.

I appreciate that the concept of free compulsory education may be difficult for some members of Legco to

/swallow

Dd 108087 400M S&K 1/77

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CONFIDENTIAL

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