TNAG-0658-FCO40-807-Policy-of-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-1977 — Page 38

III. The Government's move and the Teachers Reactions (1971-1977)

a. Re-structuring of all grades of civil servants in 1971. Making good use

of this opportunity, the government wanted to do two things to all government teachers.

1. To take them out of the Master Pay Scale for all civil servants so

that teachers will not be included whenever there are salary revisions for civil servants,

2. To cut the salary of the teachers by 20%. Government and Aided

school teachers joined forces and responded strongly. More than 10,000 teachers petitioned the governor of Hong Kong on 4 March 1973. The dispute dragged on for a year and after all teachers (17,000 in total) had boycotted classes on 4th and 13th April 1973, respectively, the Government conceded, and government and aided school teachers turned out to gain 20% increase of salary instead.

b. The T.K. Ann Report Recommendation (1976)

In May 1973, an ad hoc commission of 3 noted persons appointed by the governor was set up to study ways to prevent further misunder- standing between the government and the teachers. The report was done in November 1973 but the government put it on the shelf until One 1976 when it was made public, and made known to the teachers.

of the most important recommendations is the dis-establishment of all government Primary Schools, which mears that all of them would be converted to the private sector. We don't want to guess whether there was government influence behind the commission. However, it is obvious that such recommendation was in favor of the government who could shif off their direct responsibility of running schools and

Government got rid of government school teachers once and for all. and Aided Scho 1 teachers again objected and criticized it strongly. Mass meetings of teachers were held to denounce the recommendation,

At last in protests were sent to appropriate government authorities,

the July 6, 1977 announcement, it was released that "the Governor has ordered that there shall be no permanent disestablishment of government primary schools.....". So, the goverrmont was forced to change a little bit of her attitude.

c. The turning-over of nine government primary schools to the Aided sectors

(1976-1977).

Starting from September 1976, we heard rumours saying that the government had secretly turned over 9 government primary schools to the aided sector to run Aided Secondary schools in September 1977. Letters and papers were scrt to the government and a signature campaign against the "scll-out" was launched within the Education

As these proved Department during the second half of the year 1976. ineffective, our Union called the following actirns in June 1977: 1. Posters to be put up on all government school premises; 2. Union representatives from all government schools to petition the

governor, the chicf secretary, secretary for Social Service, councillors of the executive and legislative councils, Director of education, and chairman and members of the board of Education; 3. Press conference to call for public support;

4. Letter. sent to invite other civil servants unions to join in the

propte st.

/d. The Walk-out......