ENG-1955 — Page 125

88

HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

To provide Chinese middle school pupils with improved facilities for higher education, special classes have been open- ed to enable selected pupils from these schools to prepare for admission to the University of Hong Kong. Two large and well-administered colleges offering higher education through the medium of the Chinese language have been granted building sites in order to remove the present handicap of inadequate accommodation and to permit expansion.

The rapid industrialization of the Colony is causing a greater demand for technical education. Enrolment at the Government Technical College has increased to the point where new accommodation must be provided if efficiency is to be maintained and plans for development realized. A generous offer by the Hong Kong Chinese Manufacturers' Union to contribute $1,000,000 towards the cost of a new building, on condition that the Government match this sum with an equal amount and provide a suitable site, should make possible the completion of the first stage of a college in Kowloon by 1957.

There is also a growing demand for adult education. A new development has been the opening of an Adult Reading and Recreation Centre which uses a government school's premises in the evening; the response to this experiment, and to the instructional type of courses recently provided, has been so satisfactory that it is now proposed to extend these services as far as presently-voted funds permit.

HIGHER EDUCATION

The University of Hong Kong is an independent body incorporated under the University Ordinance of 1911. It is largely supported by recurrent and non-recurrent grants of up to $7,000,000 made annually by the Government. During the year, a grant of up to £200,000 from the Higher Education Allocation of the Colonial Development and Wel- fare Fund has been approved for the quinquennium beginning 1955. There are faculties for Arts, Science, Medicine, Engineering and Architecture, and an Institute of Oriental. Studies, which includes in its objects the promotion of interest in such studies and of understanding and goodwill between the peoples of East and West. The Council of the Institute of Civil Engineers has now accorded recognition (for a period