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medical personnel for some years to come. Because of this shortage of registered doctors, over a hundred non-registrable doctors was employed by the Medical Department for a number of years with several dozens of vacancies for Government medical officers constantly unfilled and it is also a fact that over four hundred non-registrable doctors are allowed to serve in charity clinics.

Furthermore, according to the recent report of the United Nations World Health Organization, advanced countries like the United States, Russia, Scotland etc., have one doctor for every 500 people while in Hong Kong the ratio is one to 2500. With the present rate of output of medical doctors, even the modest ratio of one doctor to 1500 will still be impossible to achieve in the foreseeable future.

With these points in mind, one will agree that it is senseless to cry for more hospitals where no satisfactory service can be expected and most unrealistic to attempt to improve medical services without prior consideration of how to get hold of more doctors.

In 1960 as president of the medical society, I publicly advocated the establishment of a medical faculty in the Chinese University of Hong Kong and medical licensing examinations at regular intervals for non-Commonwealth medical graduates as two measures to solve the problem of shortage of doctors. This proposal has made me a very unpopular figure among my fellow-practitioners but I still believe that they are the most rational measures to be taken. I am glad to note that during the period 1960 to 1961 the freshmen class in the medical faculty of the University of Hong Kong has expanded from 80 to 120 students. While I welcome this I am nevertheless of the same opinion as seven years ago that to set up a new medical college would in many ways be more beneficial. Firstly, there will be healthy competition between the two medical colleges, which is at least helpful if not essential for raising our medical standards. Secondly, a medical faculty in the Chinese University will offer an opportunity to graduates from local Chinese middle schools and so convince the Chinese population that Chinese education is not being neglected by Government.

I feel very strongly indeed that both Government authorities and local medical associations are in duty bound to formulate or modify policy in order to provide more doctors and more adequate facilities and also to see how our standard of service can be raised without prejudicing the proper interests of practitioners.

Education

The problem of education in Hong Kong is certainly a vast subject of extreme complexity. I am here speaking by no means as an educa- tional expert but as a taxpayer and a father of five children of school age. In approaching this problem I do feel that we need common sense rather than dogmatic educational theory.

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Like most people in Hong Kong, I have not the slightest doubt of the good intentions of our Education Department officials in promoting and continuously improving our system of education. In many ways public money is well spent but there is still plenty of room for further improvement.

Firstly, the frequent change back and forth of the school commence- ment age and the change of the period of primary education from six years to five and back again has caused extreme confusion in educa- tional circles and undoubtedly heavy monetary loss and a great deal of hardship among the public. It is generally felt that our Education Department depends too much on experts from the United Kingdom, who may be of very high standing at home but who cannot be expected to formulate an education policy for a community like Hong Kong, composed of over 98% Chinese with their own deep-rooted cultural background.

A second measure that has caused grave concern to most, if not all, Chinese people here is the stubborn insistence on instructing primary schools to have all subjects in primary VI except Chinese taught in English. The only reason advanced thus far has been that it facilitates primary school graduates getting into Anglo-Chinese colleges. When this decision was first made known to the public a few months ago, local educationalists at all levels vigorously opposed it as unfair and unrealistic. It is unfair because the great majority of primary VI students, who would not go to English colleges anyway, would be forced to spend an excessive amount of their already limited time and energy learning subjects in English at the expense of Chinese and other subjects. We all know from common experience which, I am glad to learn, is fully supported by principles of education, that the younger the students, the more should their mother tongue be used as the medium of instruction.

It is grossly unrealistic because at present there is a shortage of teachers for primary VI English. Do our education officials believe that the vast majority of our primary VI teachers who are secondary college graduates, even if they have had one or two years teacher train- ing, are competent to teach all primary VI subjects in English? And have they considered the great number of teachers who are Chinese school graduates and who would then face the problem of unemploy- ment? The recent news that our Education Department is to re-enforce its decision shows that they are bureaucratic officials rather than respon- sibile educationalists.

I feel the Department is deliberately belittling Chinese education because how can our Chinese middle schools survive when this policy is fully implemented?