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EDUCATION
In 1977, the second year of a three-year trial period for implementing and evaluating a set of provisional syllabuses for junior secondary forms was completed. The feed- back so far has been very satisfactory.
A British expert on curriculum development gave advice to inspectors and prin- cipals of secondary schools at an eight-day seminar held in March. The role of the inspectorate also was explained at the seminar.
An encouraging development in primary education has been the wider acceptance among school authorities of an activity approach scheme aimed at bringing about a less formal approach to learning. 'Learning by doing' is the keynote of the scheme and children are given the opportunity to proceed at their own pace and according to their own abilities. During the year, special seminars and workshops were organised for teachers implementing the approach. In addition, a three-day exhibition was held in mid-July to introduce teachers to various aspects of the scheme. More than 3,000 people visited the exhibition.
The inspectorate's Textbooks Committee continued to give positive guidance to schools on the selection of books. A comprehensive list of recommended textbooks was issued to schools in May. In an effort to improve the quality of textbooks, the Textbooks Committee maintains close liaison with two educational publishers' associations the Anglo-Chinese Textbook Publishers' Organisation Ltd. and the Hong Kong Educational Publishers' Association Ltd.
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Teaching Centres
The Advisory Inspectorate runs three centres concerned with the teaching of the Chinese language, English and mathematics.
The Chinese-Language Teaching Centre aims to improve the teaching of the Chinese language and to raise the general standard of Chinese in secondary and primary schools. In May, the Kowloon Unit of the Chinese-Language Teaching Centre moved to the Ma Tau Kok Government Offices. During the year, 60 courses, seminars and workshops attended by 2,047 teachers from 1,484 schools were conducted on both sides of the harbour. A reference library containing reading materials and teaching resources was open to teachers throughout the year. Many schools, both primary and secondary, made good use of a free dubbing service for teaching tapes offered by the
centre.
The English-Language Teaching Centre organised 13 intensive courses on methodol- ogy or speech improvement, as well as 14 workshops and 15 special seminars for 941 teachers from 323 schools. Follow-up visits were made. Some 2,580 language tapes were supplied to 158 schools and two book exhibitions were held. A specialist library, which contains 3,800 books on English-language teaching and linguistics, and an English teaching materials display room were frequently visited by teachers, school principals, lecturers and members of the Advisory Inspectorate. In May, the Kowloon Unit of the English-Language Teaching Centre also moved to new premises in the Ma Tau Kok Government Offices.
The Mathematics Teaching Centre made considerable efforts in 1977 to seek teachers' views on new topics to be included in the Curriculum Development Council Form IV to V syllabus and to help teachers implement the Form I to III provisional mathematics syllabus. The centre held 45 seminars, 25 workshops, eight in-service