The Hong Kong Education System
Chapter 4
Educational Policy, Planning and Research
The administration of education is now organised in such a
way that educational planning and the formulation of new policy (or
the adjustment of existing policy) can proceed in a systematic but
Flexibility is regarded as an important characteristic
flexible manner.
of the system since the capacity to anticipate situations as well as
respond to them demands that the approach should not be too rigid.
Fresh initiatives may come from a variety of different sources. At
one extreme a review of policy may be ordered by the Governor in Council
(as in the current review of post-secondary and technical education); at
the other, changes may come about because officials working in a
particular field of education have become aware over a period of time
of opportunities for improving existing policy and procedures, or suggest
innovations in the light of their specialised experience.
(This was
the origin, for example, of some of the improvements in adult education
policy announced in the 1978 White Paper.) Between these two extremes,
initial input may result from virtually any source
-
speeches by
unofficial members of the Legislative Council, recommendations of
committees and working parties, conference resolutions, press editorials,
and campaigns by pressure groups, etc. Some sources carry more weight
than others: in the field of education the considered views of the Board
of Education, for example, will obviously command far greater attention
than, say, passing comments on the same subject in letters to the press
(though the latter are never ignored). The overall review of the Hong
Kong education system, which has occasioned the present report, was
in fact initiated as a Board proposal.
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