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Kindergartens
EDUCATION
A total of 765 kindergartens provide pre-school education for 192,517 children in the three to six year age group. These private institutions are supervised by officers of the Education Department, who make professional advice freely available to school managers, teachers, parents and members of the public. The government gives assistance by providing reliable bodies with grants of Crown land, reimbursing non-profit-making groups with payments. of rates, allocating premises in public housing estates to suitable sponsoring bodies, and providing in-service teacher training through a two-year part-time training course, seminars and exhibitions.
Primary Education
Primary education has been free in all government schools and in most aided schools since September, 1971. In the few aided primary schools where fees are charged, fees may be remitted for up to 20 per cent of the total enrolment to meet cases of genuine hardship. To help needy parents--further, an annual textbook and stationery grant of $30 a pupil is available to 20 per cent of pupils enrolled in government and aided primary schools. A minority of parents continue to send their children to private primary schools, although places are available for them in the public sector.
In September, 1979, the primary school enrolment totalled 542,327 compared with 549,967 in the previous year. In addition, 13,218 pupils attended night schools. During the past year, 17,380 new primary places were provided in new and developing schools. Further provision of places is planned to meet the needs of developing areas, particularly the new towns in the New Territories.
The Student Guidance Officer Scheme, launched in December, 1978, to provide educa- tional and vocational guidance to all pupils and personal guidance to pupils who have learning difficulties and behavioural problems, gained impetus in 1979. It is planned to expand this scheme to cover all primary schools in 1980.
Chinese is the language of instruction in most primary schools; English is taught as a second language. Eleven junior schools eight operated by the government-subvented English Schools Foundation and three by private bodies cater for children whose first
language is English.
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Primary school leavers who want subsidised junior secondary school places participate in a system of allocation known as the Secondary School Places Allocation (SSPA). The system is based on internal school assessments scaled by a centrally-administered Academic Aptitude Test, parental choice of secondary schools, and the division of the territory into 24 school 'nets' or districts.
In July, all of the 94,646 Primary 6 leavers participating in the SSPA were allocated Form 1 or Middle 1 places in schools in the public sector, which comprises places in government and aided schools, private non-profit-making schools in receipt of per caput grants, and private independent schools in the 'bought places' scheme.
During 1979, a government Green Paper setting out problems at pre-primary and primary school levels and making proposals for dealing with them was being prepared.
Secondary Education
There are four main types of secondary schools - Anglo-Chinese secondary schools, Chinese middle schools, secondary technical schools and prevocational schools. The 333 Anglo- Chinese grammar day schools have enrolments totalling 378,570. They offer a five-year course in a broad range of academic subjects leading to the Hong Kong Certificate of