TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 239

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are, however, being made. The Hong Kong Association for Continuing Education (HKACE) has been set up to promote the cause of continuing

education and its membership now covers the major organisations

actively engaged in the field. The Director of Education also

chairs a committee on part-time education, on which are represented

the public-sector institutions concerned.

2.74

The report of the Advisory Committee on Diversification

(1979) draws attention to the fact that adult education provides

an opportunity for mature students who were unable to complete a

full course of formal education to do so as adults on a part-time

basis and that its role in the upgrading of Hong Kong's labour force

can be an important one. The report accordingly recommends that

the government should embark on an in-depth study aimed, first, at

a clearer definition of the purposes of adult education and, second,

at its better co-ordination, this study to include consideration

of a Hong Kong open education centre with flexible entry qualifications,

providing education for mature students and requiring a high degree

(These have subsequently been taken into account

of self-learning.

by the Committee to Review Post-Secondary and Technical Education.)

The report also notes that apart from the need to develop specific

professional and technical skills there is an over-riding need for

up-to-date and continuing management training if Hong Kong's industries

are to diversify successfully into new processes, products and markets.

The report points out that though the quality of management education

and training is adequate at the moment, as a result particularly of

the efforts of the Hong Kong Management Association, at least five

separate organisations are separately providing such education and

training, and there is a degree of fragmentation and overlap in their

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