Chapter 5: Improving the quality of secondary education
5.1 The Government attaches considerable importance to improving the quality of secondary education. The Government's responsibility extends mainly to providing adequate resources for accommodation, for the employment of trained teachers and other professional staff, for the use of teaching aids, and for the promotion of pre-service and in-service training schemes. The Education Department's Advisory Inspectorate guides schools on how their curriculum and teaching methods might be improved.
5.2 By improving the quality of education, the Government seeks to enable schools to realize more satisfactorily their prime functions, which might be summarised as being to help children to acquire:-
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a lively interest in the world around them and an ability to think for themselves and make decisions;
a sense of moral and social values, including respect for others and their views and beliefs;
competence in the basic skills of literacy and numeracy;
an appreciation of the world's cultural heritage, in particular that of their own community;
a realisation of Hong Kong's place in the world and its inter-dependence on other parts of the world;
a basis of mathematical, scientific and technical knowledge and skills to prepare them for the fast-changing, highly technological society in which they will live and work;
a knowledge, through a school-based guidance system, of the career opportunities available to them.
5.3 Qualitative and quantitative aspects are inter-related. The school building pro- gramme will not only increase the numbers receiving secondary education but will enable more students to take their education in schools located in the new population centres. These schools will be provided with purpose-built accommodation, sufficient laboratory and workshop facilities and the resources to employ trained teachers.
5.4 One of the unsatisfactory features of the existing secondary school structure is that there are too many different types of school, with different financial arrangements applicable to each. The Government's aim is to develop a simplified structure with more uniform financial assistance. Some progress towards this goal has already been made. The conversion of 36 assisted private schools to fully-aided status was completed in September 1978. As mentioned in Chapter 4, it is proposed to convert the three-year secondary modern schools so that they will provide senior secondary as well as junior secondary courses. The Government will not extend the bought-place scheme to senior secondary forms in private independent schools and will terminate the buying of junior secondary places in schools of this type which do not have good facilities and operating standards.
5.5 The Government proposes to raise to fully-aided status those private non-profit- making schools which are suitable and willing. It is intended to introduce this scheme to existing private non-profit-making schools in four stages, beginning in September 1979. All new schools
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