TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 413

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1974 White Paper: Secondary Education in Hong Kong over the Next Decade

14.

The 1974 White Paper set out the broad basis on which the

government, after taking into account the views of the Board of Education

and the general public, intended secondary education to develop over

the next ten years.

15.

The main provisions of the White Paper were as follows:

(i) to make available by 1979 subsidised education for

every child for nine years i.e. six years in a

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primary school followed by three years in a secondary

school; all children to follow a common course of

general education throughout these nine years;

(ii) a new public examination to be known as the Hong Kong

Junior Certificate of Education, to be taken by all

children on completion of Form/Middle III (because

secondary education tended to be dominated by preparation

for the HKCE and university entrance examinations even

though many pupils were unable to obtain tertiary education);

the Junior Certificate examination to serve two functions:

first, to provide evidence that a pupil had satisfactorily completed his education to Form/Middle III standard, which

should assist him to secure employment if he left school at

this stage; second, to provide a means of selection for those wishing to continue their education beyond Form/Middle III;

the examination to be based on a common teaching syllabus

for the junior secondary course and not to have a special

syllabus of its own;

(iii) as far as possible each secondary school to provide

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five years of secondary education in a junior secondary

course (Forms/Middle I

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III) and a senior secondary

course (Forms/Middle IV - V);