EDUCATION
15-year-old population. Places for a further 10 per cent of the age group are to be provided on full-time craft courses in technical institutes. The policy target for sixth form education is to provide one public sector Secondary 6 place for every three public sector Secondary 4 places two years earlier.
To meet these targets, new secondary schools are built and places are bought from private schools. During the year, nine new secondary schools were completed, providing 10280 places. Another 54 schools will be completed between 1991 and 1995 to meet the increasing demand and to reprovision schools from areas of surplus to areas of shortfall. A new standard design of school building, providing improved facilities and accommodation, was introduced in 1989.
To supplement the supply of government and aided secondary school places, the government buys places from those private schools which have a satisfactory standard. Starting from September 1990, places bought have been extended from junior secondary to Secondary 4 and will be extended to Secondary 6 from 1992.
Following advice in the Education Commission's Report No. 3, a direct subsidy scheme (DSS) is to be introduced in 1991. The aim is to create a strong private school sector subsidised by government, in order to improve the quality and diversity of education available. It will introduce an element of differentiation to the otherwise uniform school system to give parents more choice. Under the scheme any secondary school not run by the government and meeting specified standards will receive a public subsidy for each student enrolled. It will be free to set its own curriculum, entrance requirements and fee levels, with minimum government control. It was also announced that the bought place scheme (BPS) would come to an end in the year 2000, and that schools in the BPS would be helped before then to raise their standards as close as possible to those of an aided school. A Private Schools Review Committee was set up in November 1989 to advise on the implementation of these changes. The committee met 15 times during the year.
A BPS contract was drawn up with the aim of progressively raising the standards of the existing BPS schools with effect from September 1990. The contract specified various areas of improvement to the schools including whole day operation, class structure, teacher training and school facilities. The contract would expire in August 2001 unless either party gave to the other five years written notice of termination. A total of 17 private independent schools in the BPS entered into contract with the government.
The details of the DSS were finalised and announced in May 1990. A capital assistance loan scheme was also devised to enable non-profit-making DSS schools to use the loan for redeveloping school buildings, for major structural repairs and, in the case of international schools joining the DSS, for expansion of facilities to meet additional demand.
The Junior Secondary Education Assessment (JSEA) System allocates suitable Second- ary 3 leavers to subsidised Secondary 4 places and to full-time post-Secondary 3 craft courses. Of the 78 289 students who participated this year, 63469 (81.1 per cent) and 5950 (7.6 per cent) were allocated Secondary 4 places and post-Secondary 3 craft course places respectively. Of those allocated Secondary 4 places, 52935 (83.4 per cent) were able to continue studying in their own schools.
There are three main types of secondary school in Hong Kong: grammar, technical and prevocational.
In 1990, there were 386 grammar schools with a total enrolment of 391 567. These offer a five-year secondary course in a broad range of academic, cultural and practical subjects
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