ENG-1969 — Page 42

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HONG KONG MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN THE SIXTIES

low-cost housing. The decade has seen the accomplishment of the goal of universal primary education of relatively good quality; not compulsory, but providing a place in school for all who want it; in great degree subsidised, but not free except in case of demon- strable need. Secondary education has not been expanded so rapidly, but has nonetheless been increased in quantity and improved in quality. There are now two fully-fledged universities where before there was only one with, most importantly, a degree of co- operation between them as to the courses of studies relevant to industry and to business which each offers.

Unhappily, industrial, technical, and technological training have lagged behind. Education for blue-collar jobs has traditionally been the poor relation in the eyes of both public and teachers. Only in the last five or six years has concern expressed about this matter begun to be more than mere lip-service or hand-wringing and a considerable, but recognisably less than adequate expansion of training courses has taken place.

One can only marvel at how much was accomplished by in- dustrialists during the sixties with only the most limited appren- ticeship schemes and formal technical training schemes available to them. It is perhaps because individual industrialists improvised so successfully that they did not bring collective pressure to bear upon the Government to step up such training schemes or themselves devise group schemes until about the middle of the decade. Since then a determined attempt has been made to lay the foundations for a considerable expansion of formalised industrial training after completion of primary education. The Industrial Training Advisory Committee established in 1965 under the chairmanship of the Commissioner of Labour has undertaken preparatory studies de- signed to identify the types of craft training for which there is a particular demand and its extent; also to determine what combina- tion of in-school in-plant training is most likely to produce the most effective apprenticeship scheme for Hong Kong in the seventies. In the meantime craft courses have started at the Education Depart- ment's new Morrison Hill Technical Institute and proposals for further institutes have been drawn up by the Industrial Training Advisory Committee. At the prevocational level a new type of junior technical school is being introduced, which will provide three