"Chinese" in this context means in the vast majority of cases Cantonese, although there are a few schools whose language of instruction is Hakka, and a very few which use Kuo Yu. Kuo Yu is, however, taught as a language in many schools and is compulsory in Government schools.
The military schools cater for serving officers' and soldiers' children under the age of eleven. The staff of these schools is recruited from the Army Education Corps and the Queen's Army Schoolmistresses. They are exempted from the provision of the Education Ordinance.
Normally, secondary education in English is to a great extent in the hands of Government and grant-aided schools, while subsidized schools and private schools are largely concerned with, though not confined to, the field of primary education.
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Within the urban area in 1941 there were 649 schools. The vast majority of these-529 in number-were private schools: 91 were subsidized, and of the remainder 9 were Government and 20 grant-aided schools. The Government schools gave education to 1,500 primary and 1,199 secondary pupils, and the Grant Schools to 6,346 primary and
primary and 3,274 secondary pupils. Owing to the destruction of records accurate information is available as to the number of pupils being instructed in subsidized and private schools in the urban before the war, but in the whole Colony subsidized schools accounted for 16,353 primary and 6,931 secondary pupils, while the private schools had an enrolment of 50,814 primary and 25,951 secondary pupils. The Grant Schools had no part in the field of rural education but two Government primary schools catered for 400 pupils in the rural areas.
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It has not been possible to give priority in the heavy reconstruction programme to the restoration of the Government schools destroyed during the war. As a result only 19 build- ings are available to house 27 Government schools, and the two- session system has had to be adopted. This lack of accommoda- tion, which has made it difficult to provide adequately for Government secondary education, no longer applies to the grant- aided schools, all of which are now working only one session a day.
The most marked progress has been in the sphere of primary education. This was so even in 1946 and the trend has con- tinued throughout the year under review. Government schools
now cater for 3,867 pupils, a total more than twice as great as in 1941.
Grant schools show a slight increase during the year under review but it is in the subsidized schools and private schools that the most notable increase has been observed.
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