TNAG-0658-FCO40-807-Policy-of-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-1977 — Page 166

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XCC(75)42

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To begin with, the Committee did not examine in depth the problems associated with implementation, particular those relating to finance, staffing arrangements and the Authority's relations with the Govern- ment. On these matters the Committee's recommendations were limited to statements of general principles with little or no attempt at rationalisation. Secondly, because the Education Department was heavily preoccupied with other and more important tasks (e.g. intro- ducing free primary education, expanding secondary education, establishing the Polytechnic, and developing technical education, etc), it was unable to make any progress with the Committee's recommenda- tions. Finally, the Department had doubts as to the advisability of losing control over syllabuses and, consequently, control over educational practice.

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The Director of Education and the Secretary for Social Services have reviewed the Hartwell Committee's recommendations recently and they recommend that a public examinations authority (hereinafter called the Independent Examinations Authority) should be set up. The purpose of this memorandum, therefore, is:

(a)

(b)

to re-state the case for setting up the Independent Examinations Authority (IEA); and

to seek Honourable Members' advice on certain proposals for setting up the Authority.

The case for setting up the IEA

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are based:

(a)

(b)

(c)

;

There are three main reasons for setting up the IEA. These

on the need to free the Education Department so that it could concentrate on more important tasks from which it could not so readily be disengaged;

on the need to improve and rationalise the exami- nations system in Hong Kong and the machinery for running examinations; and

on the need to make more efficient use of human and technical resources.

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As regards (a): with the publication of the 1974 White Paper on Secondary Education the Education Department must give priority to the expansion of secondary education over the next few years. This

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