TNAG-0645-FCO40-793-Employment-of-children-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 37

2.

CONFIDENTIAL

and also of doing, and showing that we were doing, everything we possibly could to stop child labour.

5.

So we are in agreement about objectives and means. The only point on which I take issue is your assumption that junior secondary education must be free to obtain our objectives. I of course agree it would be quite wrong to compel parents to send their children to school if they could not afford to do so. However arrangements already exist under which the standard fee of $400 a year is remitted in whole or in part for parents unable to pay it, and 60% of secondary school students now benefit from them. They are an established and accepted part of the Hong Kong educational scene designed to ensure that no child for whom an assisted place exists should be denied it through lack of means. So long as these safeguards exist and are properly administered abolition of all secondary school fees would not add to our armoury for carrying our objective, and would merely benefit the better-off sections of the community at the expense of revenue.

6.

I should add that the measures in para 3 (b) and (c), which have long been planned, have not yet been submitted to Executive Council or made public.

With ejab.

Y-