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deaf children, seven for physically handicapped children, 11 hospital schools, eight for maladjusted and socially deprived children, 38 for mentally handicapped children, and one for children with learning difficulties. In addition, there are 70 special education classes in ordinary government schools and 329 revised resource classes for children with learning difficulties in ordinary aided schools. A total of 5 905 children are being educated in these special education classes.
Three Special Education Services Centres providing diagnostic and remedial services are in operation. An earmould laboratory, established in
in June 1983, provides free custom-made earmould and hearing aids to children with such needs. An annual block grant is made to the Hong Kong Society for the Blind for the operation of the Centralised Braille Production Centre, which produces free braille materials for the blind, including text books used by blind students. Short courses, seminars, workshops, refresher courses and exhibitions are organised by the Special Education Section of the Education Department to enhance the professional knowledge of those in the special education field.
Teacher Training
Teacher education is provided in the four
the four Colleges of Education: Grantham, Northcote and Sir
Sir Robert Black and the Hong Kong Technical Teachers' College.
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The principal role of the three general colleges is to train non-graduate students to become qualified teachers of general subjects in primary schools and in junior secondary levels of secondary schools. This is achieved through initial full-time and part-time in-service courses of teacher education between one year and three years duration. These courses lead to the award of a Teacher's Certificate and a certificate of status as "Qualified Teachers" respectively, which are recognised as teaching qualifications by the Education Department.
The colleges are also concerned with part-time in-service courses for kindergarten teachers, teachers in special schools and special classes and refresher courses of training for serving primary and secondary school teachers. They also offer an Advanced Course of Teacher Education for teachers of practical, technical and cultural subjects to enable them to teach in senior secondary classes of these subjects. In March 1990, there were 2 177
177 full-time students and 1 853 part-time students in the three colleges.
The main objectives of the Hong Kong Technical Teachers ́ College are to improve the quality of technical education and to ensure an adequate supply of properly trained and fully qualified technical and commercial teachers
to
meet the demand from technical institutes, technical and prevocational schools and in the technical and commercial sections of secondary schools. In March 1990, the college had a total enrolment of 563 of which 118 were attending full time courses.
A one-year full time and two-year part time Postgraduate Certificate in Education is
is offered by the Faculty of Education of the University of Hong Kong. In 1989, more than 800 students were enrolled in the Certificate of Education Course. The faculty also offers a range of Master of Education Courses designed to allow teachers to take up more specific positions within the education system. The School of Educatic. of the Chinese University of Hong Kong offers, for graduates, a one-year full time course and a two-year part time course leading to a Diploma in Education. The enrolment in March 1990 was 725.