54
5.
55
10
"
11
Confining attention for the moment to the 25 schools above-mentioned, it has to be asked what is the general plan of education within which a good standard of work is attempted, what are its aims and what its achieved results. The answer can be given briefly. The schools have aimed at Hong Kong University's Matriculation Examination.* Their actual achievement has been to provide the University with a good proportion of its students, and the banks and X business offices of Hong Kong with a large number of clerks. This summary statement will
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now be amplified.
Education in Hong Kong has been dominated by the converging influence of two factors. First, there is the very old tradition in China that success in life and social dignity belong to those whose only tool is the pen. Admission to this privileged class has always been by examination. Second, there has been and is a large demand, from merchant firms, shipping offices, warehouses, and banks, for clerks the occupation figures from the 1981 Census have already been quoted (page. The clerks must know English. Hence the schools have been obliged not merely to teach English, but to try to make it a real second language for their pupils, aiming at a standard considerably higher than that commonly attained at home in any foreign language. This demand comes from parents and pupils quite as much as from employers, and is nowadays by no means confined to boys. Girls, even if they are not going to work, in teaching or in offices, where English is required, regard a knowledge of our language as a social asset and a matrimonial qualification. It is one of the marks of their modernity, like unbound feet, proficiency in swimming, and the use of lip-stick. Also it opens their eager ears to Western culture as voiced by Hollywood.
11
The English course in these 25 schools covers a period of eight years, and is begun at about twelve years of age and finished, by those who do finish it, at about twenty. At this latter age the pupil, if he has ** stayed the course so far, will, under the arrangement now in force, sit the School Certificate Examination. This consists of five compulsory groups of subjects, in four of which the papers are set in English.
There is some tendency-and a welcome one-for the age of pupils beginning this eight years' course to drop to eleven. A Chinese boy or girl at the age of eleven or twelve, applying for admission to the lowest class (Class 3) in a Government or Grant-in-Aid English school, may or may not already know a little English.
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He/she may come straight from a vernacular school or may have been in " pre-primary classes in a Grant-in-Aid school. In the former case he begins a new life in a new school, after passing a test in Chinese. At first he will probably be under a Chinese teacher, though the medium of instruction is English in most of the lessons, Afterwards his teachers will be Europeans. Every year he is examined both in English and in Chinese, and only if his progress is considered satisfactory in both languages does he earn promotion to the next class. If he fails to earn this, and many do, he may spend another year going through the same work over again in the same class, or-since this involves some loss of face" he may leave school and give up the toilsome business of being educated, or, finally, he will sometimes contrive to obtain admission at another school to the class which he has failed to reach in his first school.
The curriculum, broadly speaking, consists of the subjects of the School Certificate Examina- tion. Boys and girls in some schools have a little Physical Training, in others none; time- tables make reluctant allowance here and there for a little Hygiene or Needlework, but in the main one task and one task only is attempted in school hours, viz. preparation for the School Certificate Examination.
Now the work done within these bounds is certainly not without its merits. The pupils learn to read English and, on the whole, to spell it surprisingly well (no doubt the study of their own written language develops their visual memory). Their handwriting is usually excellent. Their written work is neat, and in illustration of their notes, in Geography, for example, they draw admirable maps and diagrams. They acquire a useful knowledge of physics, chemistry, and mathematics. But there are very serious defects, nearly all of which can be traced directly or indirectly to the Examination. In the first place, the study of the English language and literature occupies too large a portion of the total time available, in some instances up to 23 periods in the week out of 41. This is a grossly excessive amount of a pupil's energy and time to be given to the study of a single foreign language.
Secondly, this foreign language is treated far too much as if it existed mainly in print. It does not come to life enough in the spoken word. The pupils write fluently, but speak hesi- tatingly and pronounce badly. In December, 1929, it was stated at a meeting of the Board of * As from 1935 a School Certificate Examination has been substituted, which, under certain conditions, will admit to the Tniversity.
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Education that the majority of the boys in the English schools of this Colony are unable to pronounce accurately the simplest words in the English language." This statement was not seriously challenged, though the Board rejected, after somewhat inadequate consideration, the plea then advanced for the use of phonetics in teaching English speech.
Faulty pronunciation is, of course, not revealed in a written examination. It is partly due to the pupils receiving their first lessons in English from Chinese teachers whose own pronunciation of English is very imperfect. The competent use of phonetics in the early stages, a really thorough drilling in the right use of the organs of speech for producing English sounds, would do much to remedy this. It must be added here that not only do the pupils commonly speak English badly after their eight years' course, but even their understanding of the spoken language is often so poor that they have to be given further special training, on admission to the University, before they can listen to lectures with profit. And the complaint is common with Hong Kong business men that recruits to their offices from the schools, though they will understand the written or printed word well enough, understand spoken English imperfectly and speak it badly. There is, however, some rather uncertain evidence of an improvement in this respect in recent years, particularly in the products of one important Government school where debates and informal discussions are encouraged.
Thirdly, it is obvious that those who finally reach the goal and pass, riu the School Certificate Examination, into the University or into Commerce, are retarded. It is quite common for University studies not to begin till the age of 21, and this is late. But what is worse is that there has been no interval between the passing of the qualifying examination and actual admission to the University. In England a boy qualifies for admission to a University at about 16, and the interval before his University studies actually begin, an interval commonly spent in part at any rate in the VI Form at his school, is a most valuable formative period in his education.
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Fourthly, the natural anxiety in a school to obtain the maximum number of examination successes, combined with the somewhat formidable syllabus laid down for the School Certificate Examination at present (1935), has the usual result of an attempt to get down as much as possible in the form of notes which can be memorised. These notes, as has already been said, are very neat, but unfortunately there is sometimes only too clear evidence that the writers do not understnd the statements which they so carefully record on paper. The critical spirit, the desire to understand, were not encouraged in the classical Chinese system of education, which prevailed for so many generations. Its demand for a great deal of sheer memorisation tended to discourage other forms of mental activity which we in the West consider more valuable. The results can be seen any day in Hong Kong offices, where clerks or draughtsmen copy the most obvious errors with scrupulous care and irreproachable accuracy. The younger recruits, it is gratifying to learn, are beginning to ask questions when questions should be asked. Fifth, not only are the methods of teaching influenced by the examination, or rather by the fear of it, for the first School Certificate Examination under present regulations is to be held in June, 1935, but syllabuses are determined by speculation about questions likely to be set, and the curriculum is, as has already been indicated, very rigidly limited, in many instances, to examination requirements. Two examples occur to the writer's mind, both, as it happens, connected with History, but it would certainly have been possible to find plenty of others. In two schools visited Chinese boys were being taught, not without some detail, about the religious wars in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. Asked whether he thought that this information was of the slightest importance to the boys, the teacher in one school said “No, but there will probably be a question on it." In another school, apart from a few stories told to the younger boys, History is not taught at all,* with the result that highly intelligent young men of 19 and 20 were found here who revealed an ignorance of the past complete enough to be delightful to a Voltaire or a Swift, but somewhat regrettable to less cynical minds.
It is the rule to find in Hong-Kong schools, during school hours, no Physical Training, or a mere half-hour in the week, no Manual Instruction, no Arts or Crafts, no Music and no period for organised games the Girls' schools fare in this last respect rather better than those for Boys. It is unfortunately true that the incubus of examinations weighs upon young humanity in other countries besides China. But even the world-wide prevalence of a disease would be no reason for not trying to stamp it out.
Sixth, the schools are open to the accusation that they let their pupils fall between two stools. Their English, as has already been said, is not above reproach, yet, if the writer's information is reliable, they are so far behind their contemporaries in their knowledge of Chinese, owing,
Three subjects, viz, History, Geography and Biblical knowledge, form a Group in the Examination. Two of these subjects minst be offered, and only two.
X
A
X