189.
It took some three years of discussions within the Government Secretariat before any proposal was submitted to the Executive Council. The discussions centred around how and when the student travel scheme should be withdrawn and what, if anything, should replace it. The well considered proposal put to the Executive Council in July 1979 had transport instead of education policy objectives and would have required the transport operators to provide concessionary fares to students with the cost being absorbed in their fare structures. However, in submitting its proposals to the Executive Council, the Government made its second serious mistake. The Executive Council Memorandum explained that the working party had recommended the abolition of the scheme and gave a number of the reasons for so doing, but it failed to mention what I consider to have been the main reason for the working party's recommendation, namely, that the student travel scheme contributed little to educational objectives, and failed to draw attention to the fact that the educational justification for the scheme given to the Executive Council in 1971 had been incorrect. Consequently, the Executive Council did not have all the necessary information on which to base their subsequent advice. The decision of the Governor in Council was that the proposals in the Executive Council Memorandum should be rejected and that the student travel scheme should be continued as an educational measure, recognizing that it might need to be extended to other public transport operators not then subsidized. The scheme was later extended as part of the 1981 revision to a total of eight transport operators which greatly increased its cost, but it was a logical development if the matter was to be regarded as one of education policy.
190.
In the two years from the rejection of the 1979 proposals until the revised scheme was approved, a number of alternative proposals were submitted to the Executive Council. However, the decision to regard the student travel scheme as necessary for the achievement of educational objectives seems to have led to the further extension of the scheme to cover first degree university students and to include journeys on holidays and journeys outside school hours on any day of the week. When the Government Secretariat was instructed by the Governor in Council in early 1981 to consider these two additional extensions, there was again a failure to fully consider the merits of the policy objectives of the proposals and to work out the various alternative options for their achievement. Firstly, account was not taken of the fact that university student travelling expenses were already taken into account in the student finance scheme operated by the Secretary, University and Polytechnic Grants Committee. Secondly, the Governor in Council's
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