A Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong
when the new Technical Institute was opened. Although we had wire netting screens to protect the Technical College windows in the 1950s, demolition teams still managed to break a few panes of our glass after they had beaten gongs as warnings and blasted away at 12 noon every weekday.
It was great getting back to my old stamping ground at MHTI, in 1970. I have always considered the four years I spent setting up and serving as Principal of the Morrison Hill Institute as one of the most satisfying periods of my career. I had splendid staff. Nevertheless, equipment was far more basic then than that used today. TIs were a new venture for Hong Kong. For us, it seemed, at times, almost a spiritual search for the mountain top.
But moving on. In the latter part of the 1960s, it had become obvious that one technical institute was not going to be sufficient to serve Hong Kong's industry which, before China started opening up in December 1978, was largely fairly basic manufacturing. As a result, the Technical Institute Committee, of the Industrial Training Advisory Committee (ITAC) (on which I sat), endorsed our proposals that five TIs were required with a further three coming on stream later, making a total of eight.
Although many were dissatisfied with the pace of development, with Kwun Tong and Kwai Chung Institutes as proposed by the Education Department only coming into being in 1975, the Government Public Works Department wanted to delay the completion of the new buildings. The then new Governor, the late Sir Murray MacLehose, held a meeting in Government House in early 1972. He soon let it be known ‘..... there would be two more technical institutes by 1975'.
And there were. Lord MacLehose, as he later became, was a man of action.
Carrying on from there, the Haking Wong and the Lee Wai Lee Institutes came on stream in 1977 and 1979 respectively, although the latter was not entirely completed until 1980. Extensions were made to these institutes at later
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A Brief History of Technical Education in Hong Kong
when the new Technical Institute was opened. Although we had wire netting screens to protect the Technical College windows in the 1950s, demolition teams still managed to break a few panes of our glass after they had beaten gongs as warnings and blasted away at 12 noon every week-day.
It was great getting back to my old stamping ground at MHTI, in 1970. I have always considered the four years I spent setting up and serving as Principal of the Morrison Hill Institute as one of the most satisfying periods of my career. I had splendid staff. Nevertheless, equipment was far more basic then than that used today. TIs were a new venture for Hong Kong. For us it seemed, at times, almost a spiritual search for the mountain top.
But moving on. In the latter part of the 1960s it had become obvious that one technical institute was not going to be sufficient to serve Hong Kong's industry which, before China started opening up in December 1978, was largely fairly basic manufacturing. As a result the Technical Institute Committee, of the Industrial Training Advisory Committee (ITAC)(on which I sat), endorsed our
proposals that five TIs were required with a further three coming on stream fater, making a total of eight.
Although many were dissatisfied with the pace of development, with Kwun Tong and Kwai Chung Institutes as proposed by the Education Department only coming into being in 1975, the Government Public Works Department wanted to delay the completion of the new buildings. The then new Governor, the late Sir Murray MacLehose, held a meeting in Government House in early 1972. He
soon let it be known ‘..... there would be two more technical institutes by 1975'.
And there were. Lord MacLehose, as he later became, was a man of action.
Carrying on from there the Haking Wong and the Lee Wai Lee Institutes came on stream in 1977 and 1979 respectively, although the latter was not entirely completed until 1980. Extensions were made to these institutes at later
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