6
Education
THE year under review was again one of consolidation and progress. It saw 'the provision of more aided primary and post-primary school places, the extension of educational television courses to Primary 4 level, the introduction of an expanded teacher training programme and the approval of a second five-year development plan for special education. Moreover, the Technical College was taken over by the Polytechnic Board to form the nucleus of the new Polytechnic, and for the first time the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (English) and the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (Chinese) were conducted by one body, the new Hong Kong Certificate of Education Board.
Under the Education Ordinance, the Director of Education is responsible for all matters relating to education in Hong Kong. He directly controls all government schools, while all other schools with very few exceptions are required to be registered under the ordinance, thus providing the Director with the necessary powers to ensure that acceptable standards are maintained. The Education Ordinance also gives the Director powers to order parents to send their children to school where it appears to him that they are withholding their children from primary school without reason- able excuse. Parents so ordered may appeal, if they wish, to a specially constituted board of review. The Director of Education is also chairman of the Board of Educa- tion which advises the Governor on educational matters.
One of the main features of education continues to be its steady expansion. Detailed figures are given in Appendix 18. At the end of September, enrolment in kindergartens was 130,894; in primary schools it was 748,291 and in secondary schools enrolment was 323,090, compared with 132,900; 764,313 and 295,820 respec- tively in 1971. Altogether 1,284,393 pupils were enrolled in 2,895 schools, colleges and adult education centres, 15,733 more than last year. The drop in kindergarten and primary school enrolment is attributed to the decline in Hong Kong's annual birth rate over the past nine years.
In pursuit of government policy that the subsidy paid to English-speaking schools should not exceed the subsidy for other aided primary or secondary schools, a Select Committee of the Legislative Council was appointed to examine in detail the operating costs of the English-speaking schools. As a result, it was announced in August that with effect from January 1, 1973, fees at English-speaking schools will be raised to $1,150 a year at primary schools and to $2,050 a year at secondary schools. At the same time it was also announced that the government, as an em- ployer, would introduce local education allowances for its own employees from the same date.