TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 325

6.5

the two year post-Form VI course who had demonstrated the

ability to proceed to a higher award (para 6.20).

Qualifications awarded at the end of the post-Form VI courses

to be aligned with those awarded by the Polytechnic to

comparable students (para 6.19) and the government to recognise

students completing the further one-year course successfully

and entering the government service as having the same

eligibility and entitlements as would be granted to

Polytechnic students studying one year beyond the Higher

Diploma Level: an independent assessment of qualifications

to be carried out (para 6.20).

The policy proposals outlined above were based on the findings

of the Working Party on Senior Secondary and Tertiary Education, May 1977

(referred to hereafter as the 1977 Working Party) whose report embodied

certain assumptions on social demand (what the community wants), on

economic demand (what the community needs) and on the number of students

who can be considered qualified to proceed to higher education. The

views of the 1977 Working Party, and the assumptions on which these

views were based, were re-assessed in the light of changing circumstances

by a small working group of officials in December 1979 (referred to

hereafter as the 1979 Working Group) in order to facilitate discussion

with the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee during their

visitation in March 1980 that is, as a forerunner to the current

review of post-secondary and technical education (the White Paper having

stated at paragraph 6.6 that the government would reconsider the

university growth rate in the 1980s, having regard to the demand for

local places, to opportunities overseas and to the employment prospects

of graduates).

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