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relationships between management committees and teachers. To this end
steps are being taken to strengthen channels of communication between
school staff, management and the Education Department, and to develop
systems by which teachers' views can be effectively communicated to the
school management. Training programmes are also being introduced for
senior school staff in management and administration.
3.22
The status and functions of the codes of aid in relation to the
Education Ordinance are now being reviewed by the Department with the aim
of ensuring an unambiguous and uniform standard of enforcement. The
review is being undertaken in consultation with sponsoring bodies and
schools councils but the ambit of the codes of aid is so comprehensive,
the subject-matter so complex and the views held by different bodies on
points of detail so diverse that the review is not likely to be completed
in the near future. One of the aims of the review is to define more
clearly the roles and functions of the school supervisor, members of the
management committee, school principal and teachers. At present there
are two codes of aid (primary and secondary) for ordinary schools and
two (also primary and secondary) for special schools and special classes.
The feasibility of unifying the latter two codes is now being explored
since in special education the categorisation of children (especially
mentally handicapped children) as "primary" or "secondary" is in many
cases meaningless; it can also result in frustrating administrative
complexity and uneven standards of provision in those special schools
which cater as single administrative units for a wide age range (in some
cases from kindergarten to Form V).
3.23 A particular feature of the system is that the terms "sponsor"
and "sponsoring body" appear in neither the Ordinance nor the codes of
aid, both of which charge the management committees of schools with
numerous legal and administrative obligations, especially with regard