VILLAGE EDUCATION IN TRANSITION:
THE CASE OF SHEUNG SHUI
NG LUN NGAI-HA*
When the British took over the New Territories in 1898, their stated policy was to interfere with the civilization and way of life of the settled population as little as possible". The policy was maintained. Yet, the turn of the century and the decades that followed were years of important changes in China which must have affected the traditional way of life even in the New Territories. Moreover, with the introduction of British rule and administration, the opening of the region to the "outside world and its growing contact with urban Hong Kong, forces for change must also have been at work. This study aims to show how village education, which was one of the most important aspects of traditional New Territories society, was affected during these decades of change. Sheung Shui is taken as a case study because it is an important single clan village with a long history of scholastic achievement. As information that can be found in the official documents such as Lockhart's Report and the administrative reports on the New Territories is very scanty, much of this study has had to depend on local sources collected in an Oral History Project** which included written records in private possessions and also the recollection of the village elders.
The development of education in Sheung Shui, the change from the traditional to a modern educational structure passed through four phases, the first being the completely traditional, which ended about 1900; the second a transitional phase during which the traditional education declined but little reformed education was available in its place; the third, which lasted from about 1912 to 1932, saw a steady increase in modern educational
* Dr. Ng is a Senior Lecturer in History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
**This was one of the series of Oral History Projects on the study of the New Territories sponsored by the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong during 1981-82. The author wishes to acknowledge here her thanks to the Institute for its financial support.