§ 1. Mr. Dempseyasked the Secretary for Technical Co-operation to what extent technical educational instruction is being provided in schools in the Colonies; and what proposals he has for its expansion.
§ Mr. VosperThe answer to the first part of the Question is given below.
As regards proposals for expansion, substantial grants from C.D. & W. funds have recently been approved for the Kampala Technical Institute, the Kenya Polytechnic, the Jamaica College of Arts, Science and Technology, and the Lusaka College of Further Education. Overseas governments are being invited to nominate candidates for Commonwealth technical teacher bursaries. The Council for Technical Education and Training for Overseas Countries will also, I hope, help us to find ways of focusing and intensifying our effort.
The following is the reply to the first part of the Question:
The extent and provision of technical education instruction in schools in the colonies is a matter primarily for the individual governments of the territories. Technical education takes place part-time as well as full-time, not only in schools but in technical institutes, colleges, government departments and industry. Partly for this reason, the following table 110W of figures of full time enrolment in vocational courses, as reported by the Educational Departments of the territories, gives an incomplete impression of the total of technical education. If part-time students, for whom in most territories up-to-date figures are not available, were included, many of the wide fluctuations in this list would disappear. For instance the apparently much greater provision of vocational training in Jamaica than in Trinidad and Barbados reflects the adoption by Jamaica of the "Secondary Technical" type of school as against the development in the other two territories of the multi-purposes Technical Institute with its predominantly part-time student body.
Latest available Figures of Enrolment in Full-Time Vocational Courses (excluding Teacher Training) in the British Territories(a) Territory Total Kenya … 2,472 Uganda … 4,492(a) Zanzibar … 182 Basutoland … 694 Swaziland … 80 Gambia … 24 Northern Rhodesia … 1,428(b) Nyasaland … 671(b) North Borneo … 69 Sarawak … 11 Brunei … 144 Hong Kong … 4,566 Barbados … 25 Grenada … 3 Jamaica … 2,623 Trinidad … 222 British Guiana … 1,229 British Honduras … 96 Gibraltar … 158 Fiji … 513 British Solomon Islands … 24 Gilbert and Ellice Islands … 42 Bahamas … 65 Bermuda … 333 St. Helena … 92 Aden … 300 Mauritius … 144 Seychelles … 20 State of Malta … 1,044 (a) Where a territory is not included, no vocational education has been reported by the Education Department. (b) Figures relate only to Africans.