ENG-1983 — Page 40

EDUCATION AT THE CROSSROADS

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'The motion under debate is one of the most important which this Council has had before it for some time. It involves the whole future of our children. Their future is in our hands to-day as we consider whether or not the Government should use the report A Perspective on Education in Hong Kong as a basis for continuing its improvements in the education of our children. I sincerely urge all our members to support the motion and I shall show that such improvements are the natural continuation of policies already accepted by this legislature.'

There is much in the Hong Kong community's perception of education and its attitudes towards the existing system which is well worth protecting. The characteristic resourceful- ness of the Hong Kong people, their readiness to accept challenge and their determination to do the best for their children that circumstances will allow have all helped to shape the education system and at the same time throw into clear relief the educational problems that have emerged. There is still among Hong Kong young people a marked resilience to problems and a determination to work hard. It is felt by some of those who place great value on these qualities that a number of the proposals made by the Panel of Visitors, drawn as they were from Western models of education, may be inappropriate to Hong Kong, and that adoption of overseas pedagogical methods may result in a weakening of Hong Kong students' willingness to spend time in concentrated study.

This is a problem of which the panel members were themselves fully aware. They pointed out at the beginning of their report that 'the only proposals that have an even chance of becoming real solutions are those which the people of Hong Kong adopt for themselves, albeit prompted and assured by sympathetic visitors like ourselves. We prefer to point to desirable directions rather than to prescribe treatment for immediate ills.' They reaffirmed this approach by concluding their report with the statement: 'Here we end where the people of Hong Kong must begin: by talking about curriculum, by coming to grips with those theories of education, structures of knowledge and cultural maps which are to be harmonised so that their education system may flourish and hence their society continue to prosper.'