Young people's knowledge about the representative organizations of the 'three-tier'government was far from satisfactory, a newly released survey commissioned by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups has revealed. Only 30 per cent of the young respondents polled in the survey said they were familiar with the Legislative Council. Another 17 per cent and 11 per cent mentioned about the Municipal Councils and District Boards respectively.

It also indicated that up to two-third of the respondents could not think of any impressive areas of work of the District Boards whereas 47 per cent were not able to answer the same question in respect to the Municipal Councils.

In evaluating the performance of the three-tier representative organizations, young respondents gave the Municipal Councils an average of 62.7 marks out of 100. It was followed by the District Boards (56.5 marks) and the Legislative Council (51 marks).

As far as the voting intentions of the young respondents are concerned, 37 per cent said that they were not going to vote in the next elections of the three representative organizations. It also showed that 22 per cent of the respondents could not think of any methods that would encourage them to vote in the elections. Another 20 per cent said they might cast their ballots if they found some of the candidates were favorable to them.

Regarding the review of the regional organizations which will be undertaken by the government in next year, nearly 55 per cent of the respondent agreed that the two Municipal Councils should merge into one so that the relevant rules, regulations and policies could be unified and the efficiency of the Councils could be further improved. The remaining 36.5 per cent who did not support the proposal , saying that it would be more flexible to have two Municipal Councils and they were satisfied with the current system.

In addition, two-third of the young respondents thought that there was no need to simplify the Municipal Councils and District Boards into one tier. It also showed that the majority (75 per cent) of the youngsters considered that the existing number of District Boards should remain unchanged.

As revealed in the survey, most youngsters believed that mass propaganda and more discussions at schools would encourage them to express their views on the regional organizations.

The telephone poll was conducted from 3 to 7 November. A total of 570 young people aged from 15 to 29 were successfully interviewed.