EDUCATION
employment or senior secondary education in mainstream schools. The seven skills. opportunity schools, which offer a three-year tailor-made and skills-oriented curriculum to help students with severe learning difficulties acquire basic social and vocational skills, had an enrolment of 707 in September. The Subcommittee on Special Education of the Board of Education has completed its review on the future. development of practical schools and skills opportunity schools. It recommended the mainstreaming of all practical schools and the retention of some skills opportunity schools in the interim, with a view to mainstreaming them in the long run. Its recommendation has been endorsed by the board. Implementation of the mainstreaming will commence in the 2002-03 school year.
Secondary 3 leavers are selected for subsidised places in Secondary 4 or basic craft courses, according to internal school assessments and parental preference. In 2001, 73 640 students took part in the selection exercise, of whom 67 850 (92.1 per cent) secured Secondary 4 places in public sector schools, and 2 366 (3.2 per cent) were admitted to basic craft courses. HKCEE candidates applied for subsidised Secondary 6 places according to an established Secondary 6 admission procedure. The 2001-02 school year had 24 324 subsidised Secondary 6 places.
Starting from the 2002-03 school year, all Secondary 3 students from public sector schools who have the ability and wish to continue with their study will be given the opportunity to receive subsidised Secondary 4 education or vocational training. The Government plans to provide an additional 6000 places at the Secondary 4 level before the 2003-04 school year.
The student-to-teacher ratio is about 19:1. Additional teachers are supplied to strengthen language teaching; to provide remedial teaching, career guidance, counselling, extra-curricular activities and library services; and to enable split-class teaching. The ratio of graduate to non-graduate teachers is about 7:3.
Each public sector secondary school has a library staffed by a teacher-librarian responsible for managing the school library and organising library activities for students. The 2000-01 Reading Award Scheme for Secondary 1 to 5 attracted 82 000 students from 286 secondary schools.
School Building
The Government is committed to providing a quality learning and teaching environment in which young people can develop their full potential. Following extensive consultations, it has revised the designs for secondary and primary schools to provide improved facilities, to support, for example, the use of information technology and the enhancement of language training. The first batch of schools to adopt the new Year 2000 design with these improvements started operation in September 2000. The Government will continue to improve and develop more diversified school building designs. In this regard, the School Building Design Committee established under the Education Department, which includes practising architects and representatives of the school sector as its members, is exploring innovations in school building design that will provide a quality learning environment and flexibility in the use of space to suit individual circumstances. Steps will be taken to involve the private sector more in the Government's school building programme. In order to bring facilities in existing schools (built to old planning standards) up to date for modern learning and teaching, a school improvement programme was started
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