Sir,
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DRAFT SPEECH BY HON ALEX WU, CBE, LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 23.1.85
Education Commission Report No. 1
JP
I am grateful to Your Honour for exercising discretion. under the Standing Orders to allow the debate to exceed the prescribed time limit. There existed at one time the danger of our soprano voices having a drowning effect on the choir when Dr HO was to be accompanied by three ladies only.
The Education Commission, as revealed in its No. 1 Report, has made careful deliberations on the question of language in education taking into account the observations made by the Visiting Panel. The latter had recommended, as noted in the Report, "a progressive shift from mother-tongue education in kindergartens and primary schools to genuinely bilingual
I am delighted to programmes in the junior secondary forms".
see that the Education Commission endorses this view as is noted in para. 3.8, "For Hong Kong to retain its position as a leading international centre of finance, trade and industry, we are convinced that bilingualism is essential."
I am
Sir, I fully support this view. Hong Kong's next generation must be competent in both English and Chinese. concerned, however, taking the present situation into consideration, whether Hong Kong is ready for the introduction of bilingual education. His Excellency the Governor had, in his opening address to this Council in October last year, referred to the lack of suitable materials for the teaching of Chinese language and that the need to produce Chinese textbooks for the use of primary and secondary schools was "a long felt need". I am happy to see that the Education Commission has recommended in para. 3.21(e) that the Chinese and English syllabuses should be redesigned and that arrangements should be made "for the publication of textbooks in both languages so that they will be available to all schools regardless of the language mode chosen."
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