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taking place in the morning and the other in the afternoon. In this way a school which would normally cater for 200 pupils now provides education for 400. Each session has its own headmaster and staff. While this results in a slightly shorter number of hours tuition the necessity of providing education for as many children as possible makes it the only practical solution. The morning schools are opened for 27 hours a week and the afternoon schools for 25 hours a week. One feature of this general expansion has been a very large in- crease in the number of Government schools in which instruc- tion is carried on in Chinese. Before the war there were only two such but in the period since the liberation of the Colony this number has been increased to ten.
By the end of 1946 there were actually more pupils attending primary schools than in 1941. In the urban area Government schools catered for 3,142, or twice the 1941 total, Grant Schools for 7,583 as against 6,346, subsidized schools for 8,909 and private schools for 32,366. The last two cate- gories include night schools with an enrolment of 2,678 and 11,733 respectively.
Secondary education on the other hand did not show such a startling revival. Although the Government and Grant Schools reached their pre-war enrolment, neither the subsi- dized nor the private schools came anywhere near the 1941 figures. The total result is that against 37,355 who were receiving secondary education in 1941 there was at the end of 1946 a total of only 12,105.
Rural education continues to be mainly in the hands of private and subsidized schools, although Government main- tains three primary schools, one at Taipo, one at Un Long and one on the island of Cheung Chau. Private schools have not yet resumed on anything like the same scale as in 1941 when there were 48 in the rural areas, but subsidized schools which cater for almost 10,000 primary pupils show an increase from 123 to 144.
Since the liberation of the Colony a determined effort has been made to cope with the problem of educating the children of the fishing community. Four schools have now been provided for these children three of which receive subsidies from the Education Department and further assistance from the Fisheries Department. In one of these schools accommo- dation is provided for the children.
Damage and looting of equipment have so far prevented the reopening of the Government Trade and Technical Schools. The position at the close of 1946 was that no resump- tion was to be expected for some months. Some of the large quantity of equipment required to re-equip entirely the Trade School was expected to arrive early in 1947. The first course of training was to be a wireless operators' course, and plans were being made for a course in building for those who had been within three months of completing their course in 1941.