TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 241

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The

Details of current provision by the Education Department's

Adult Education Section are shown at appendix J. A feature to which

attention needs to be drawn is that a significant proportion of

the work carried out by this Section (and by some voluntary

agencies) is not strictly adult education in the popular sense.

Department's Evening Institute offers formal courses ranging from

literacy to secondary and post-secondary studies, and general

background courses provide fundamental and elementary education

at primary level, albeit with special reference to adult needs and

interests. There is still a necessary emphasis on courses at

secondary school level - the Young People's Courses, the Secondary

School Course and the Middle School Course for Adults

J

In a

which lead

to the Hong Kong Certificate of Education examination. With the

establishment of nine years' basic education the emphasis in the

latter courses is shifting to the senior secondary level (and

indeed, in calculating senior secondary provision over the planning

period the 1978 White Paper took such places into account).

sense such courses could now be regarded as forming a part-time

extension of normal day-school provision during a period of

consolidation in basic educational provision. In this context it

should also be noted that private evening schools offering formal

education courses, though declining in the long term, are still

flourishing in Hong Kong in spite of their very variable standards.

In September 1980 the total enrolment in such schools was as follows

(figures for 1979 in brackets):

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