TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 379

6.

does not of course imply a collective or consensus view, but is drawn

from the individual views of the speakers.)

The educational system

(a) There is a need to integrate the various sectional

reviews of education which the government has

undertaken in recent years: the present system

is too much of a patchwork;

(b) there is a need to develop more rapidly the

quality of our education and to diversify its

content to include far more of a vocational

nature: we must greatly increase our supporting

services if our nine years of free and compulsory

schooling is to have any proper value or meaning.

Higher education

(c) A suitable balance should be maintained between

economic and social demands for higher education:

the development of Hong Kong's economy in the 1980s

should not be inhibited by a shortage of high-

level technological manpower;

(a) fees for higher education should reflect the real

cost of education: at present all students, rich or

poor, are subsidised more or less to the same

degree, but in the interests of social equity the

well-to-do should pay the full cost, enabling more

places to be provided in higher education without

a corresponding increase in public expenditure;

(e) there is a need to increase the annual growth

rate of student numbers in the universities: the

possibility of subsidising Hong Kong students

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