TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 240

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activities as well as a lack of a common objective in meeting Hong

Kong's needs in the future. On this point the report recommends

that the Director of Education's lead towards reconciling the

training offered by some organisations should be taken up by the

Industrial Training Authority proposed elsewhere in the report.

2.75

Public criticism of the government's policy on adult (and

continuing) education is not widespread but it is intense among

some of the organisations and individuals working directly in the

field. The burden of their complaint is that this sector has

consistently been given too low a priority in educational development,

that funds are manifestly inadequate and that there is insufficient

official recognition of the need for a massive programme of retrieval

education. It is an undeniable fact that the enormous cost of

providing a basic nine-year course of education and of extending

and improving opportunities in the senior secondary and tertiary

sectors has overshadowed other desirable but less pressing developments.

The 1978 White Paper announced a new initiative in that henceforth

the main thrust of the government's policy for developing retrieval

courses for adults would be directed to assisting voluntary

organisations to complement and supplement the Education Department's

own courses. 18 courses following the guidelines set out in the

White Paper have subsequently been approved on a trial basis, and

the other White Paper proposals for strengthening the administration

and improving the quality of adult education are now being implemented.

The view that adult and tertiary education could develop side by side

to an appreciable extent if the open education centre concept (or

other distance learning techniques) were developed has been expressed,

and this field is accordingly being included in the current review of

post-secondary and technical education.