TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 265

4.

personal capacity (in education, this usually means heads and teachers

drawn from different types of school): these members often outnumber

official members, as in the Working Party on the Replacement of the

Secondary School Entrance Examination which, like other working parties

of its kind, solicited public representations on the issues concerned so

that these could be taken into account at an early stage. Though these

matters are in no way circumscribed by rule or custom, it is generally

true to say that in recent times major official initiatives in education

have entailed the establishment of working parties which are wholly

official, with public comment forming a vital stage of the deliberations,

but that there have been a variety of occasions when officials and

unofficials have worked together, particularly on matters arising from

the implementation of education policies. A notable exception to this,

however, is the 1973 Board of Education report on secondary education,

which was tabled without change as a green paper in the Legislative

Council (the 1973 Green Paper) and, moreover, the recently convened

Committee to Review Post-Secondary and Technical Education (a major policy

field) has both official and unofficial membership at a high level. Thus

it may be said that while the system is still emerging no hard and fast

rules apply.

4.5

In the field of education, official working parties normally

submit a confidential report to the Director of Education or to the

Secretary for Social Services. This is usually a frank document which

explores all the feasible options for development in considerable detail,

taking into account social, political, economic and financial implications

and recommending specific lines of action which are known to be

acceptable in principle to the government departments and branches concerned.

Before formal submission the report is normally made available (also on

a confidential basis) to the major advisory bodies. Hence the reports

of the Working Party on the Review of Primary Education and the Working