TNAG-1449-FCO40-1953-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 76

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different.

While there is a surplus of places for the

territory as a whole of some 41,000 (including the maximum

number of bought places available for purchase), the

distribution is uneven with shortfalls in some Districts

offset by surpluses in others.

2.

As to the reason for the simultaneous surplus

of primary places and shortage of secondary places in

certain Districts, there are three factors which help to

explain this:

(a)

Firstly, the basis of provision is different.

In the case of primary schools, these are

provided in response to the requirements of a

given locality so that young children are not

required to travel more than a short distance

to school. In the case of secondary schools,

where the objective is to achieve a rough

balance of supply and demand territory-wide,

the supply of and demand for places in a

particular District will not necessarily

balance and students may be required to travel

a greater distance. Every effort is made to

minimise this requirement and, as can be seen

from Table 2, those Districts with a

substantial shortfall are adjacent to Districts

with a substantial surplus of places.