76
30
31
at the following estimate--(112 × 40)+(28 × 40)= $5,600 as the annual cost of the Instructors for the evening classes.
103. We now give a very rough estimate of the annual initial cost of the Technical School-
Principal £850 × 16.66
$14,161
Woodwork Instructor
4,800
Add travelling allowance @ $50 a month for 7 months
250
Graduate teachers in the Junior Technical School Building construction Teacher; 3 hours a week for 40 weeks
@ $7 an hour
3.600
840
Evening Class Instructors
5,600
$29,251
104. The Director of Education informs us that it is just possible that a school building will be available in the Eastern District and that this might serve the purposes of the Junior Technical School and for some of the evening classes. For such evening classes as could be most conveniently held at the Taikoo and Kowloon Docks accommodation would we understand be provided by the companies concerned. The Teclmical Institute classes are already held in the University, and we have already referred to the Taikoo Professor's suggestion that the Technical School might possibly make use of the University's metal workshops. The University would probably be willing to lend the use of its lecture rooms and its laboratories (under safeguards) and we have received from the Professor of Electrical Engineering a suggestion which involves making the University's lecture-rooms, drafting-rooms, laboratories etc., annually available for the further and technical education of appren- tices. Government school buildings might also be made available, though the priority of the claim of the Technical Institute to the use of these buildings would have to be recognized. We should not at any rate recommend the erection of any new building, until the Technical School has justified itself and the Principal is here to advise on the lines of the new building. The only possible expenditure which might have to be incurred before the scheme could be started might be the renting of a house for the Junior Technical School. If we assume that $200 a month might be required for this purpose and add a sum of $1,549 for furniture and equipment and other unforeseen expenses the estimate of initial expenditure must be raised to $31,000. We do not in fact anticipate that the cost of the Technical School during the first five years of its existence would exceed $35,000 a year, which at the present rate of exchange is less than £1,750.
105. We feel that the scheme might be initiated on the basis of the following
programme .-
(a) Bring out the Principal to a building adapted for the purposes of the Junior Technical School and for evening classes organized either in this building or elsewhere.
(b) If the undertaking is successful both as regards the Junior Technical School and the Department for the Further and Technical Education of Apprentices, then retain the Principal and put up the necessary building. (c) If the undertaking is successful as regards the Department for the Further and Technical Education of Apprentices but fails as regards the Junior Technical School, then dispense with the Principal; close the Junior Technical School, and increase the funds at the disposal of the Director of Education so as to enable him to extend the present Technical Institute Evening Classes by the inclusion in that organization of the work in which the Department for the Further and Technical Education of Apprentices has succeeded.
(d) If the Junior Technical School is successful but the Department for the Further and Technical Education of Apprentices is a failure, the Principal could, if necessary, he sent home and the Junior Technical school continued under a less expensive headmaster appointed from the Education Department.
(e) If the undertaking is unsuccessful in both departments the Frincipal can
be sent home,
We
106. We think that fees should be charged both in the Junior Technical School Fees. and in the Evening Classes. As regards the latter the fee rates might be the same as those charged by the Technical Institute viz., $10 a term per subject, for an annual session of two terms. Thus an apprentice who is taking two subjects would pay $40 a year. The fees charged at the Junior Technical School should be at the rate of $60 a year which is the fee now charged in the lower classes of Queen's College. Ad- mission to the Junior Technical School should be by competitive examination. do not think that there should be any free students at the Junior Technical School, but we should like to see some scholarships to be competed for either at the entrance or at the annual examinations. The engineering firms agree to give the pupils who pass successfully out of the Junior Technical School first claim to enter their appren- ticeship systems. But the engagement of apprentices by any particular firm will be of course at the sole discretion of the firm. It would be desirable that there should be a few scholarships awarded at the final examination of the Junior Technical School -scholarships tenable by apprentices only, who were going through the evening classes curriculum. We consider that if Government establishes and maintains the Technical School it is only reasonable that they should look to the public for scholar- ships. We have suggested that admission to the Junior Technical School should be by competitive examination. Care will also have to be taken to see that none but those whose parents' intention is bona fide that they should pass on to be apprentices should be admitted. Probably a statement to this effect from the parent or guardian should be required.
107. It should be noted that the staffing arrangements suggested both for the Medium of Junior Technical School and for the evening classes should make it possible for all the instruction. instruction save the technical instruction given by members of the Dockyard staffs and others to be through the medium of Chinese. This arrangement will make it practical for the English teaching to be devoted towards the workers' practical needs.
VI. Trade Schools.
can the
School F regarded as
108. The third category under which the Singapore Technical Education Com- How far mittee of 1925 considered its reference was "the education given in trade (or artizan) Junior schools to youths training to become mechanics and so on.' In so far as our suggest- Technical ed Junior Technical School is to give pre-apprenticeship education to those who are going to become mechanics, it falls under this category. But it differs from the a Trade trade school, as we understand it, in this important respect, that, whereas a trade School? school such as the Kuala Lumpur school for the training of motor mechanics aims at training the ordinary workers in the motor driving and repairing industry, or in other words, chauffeurs and the ordinary garage workers, the Junior Technical School which we suggest aims at producing mechanics or workers who are likely to develop into supervisors, foremen etc. The distinction turns to a certain extent on the nature of the industries towards which the educational effort is directed. The shipbuilding and engineering industry of Hong Kong is an organized industry which needs to be able to recruit locally ordinary workers and men of the potential foremen or supervisor class
The Junior Technical School represents the first stage in the attempt to produce the latter type. Admission to this school will be by open competition, but it will not, to start with at any rate, touch the rank and file of the dockyard workers. It might therefore be suggested that such a trade or artizan school should be estab lished and maintained for the dockyard workers. We are not in favour of any such step being taken at the present juncture. The ordinary trade apprentices who are taken on at the Dockyards will be eligible for admission to appropriate evening classes and for the organization and conduct of these classes the experience of the Principal of the Technical School will be available. These artizans will learn the practice of their several crafts in the workshops of the shipyards. The evening classes will give them a chance of becoming more intelligent craftsmen and will give the exceptional boy a chance of rising. A beginning has to be made and we are convinced that our suggest- ed Technical School is the most practical way of making an effective start. attempt to plan under existing conditions a scheme of trade schools directed towards the provision of a general training of artizans and mechanics for the local engineer-
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