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Part I.
PREFACE.
1. The Colony of Hong Kong comprises the island of Hong Kong, the Kowloon peninsula and the New Territories' consisting of a number of islands and a strip of the mainland contiguous to the Kowloon peninsula.
2. The vast bulk of the population are Chinese drawn from the neighbouring province of Kwang Tung.
3. The following figures which are of educational interest are quoted from the report on the census taken on the night of 7th March, 1931:-
Chinese
-
Non-Chinese
Total Population
821,429
28,322
849,751
4. Of the Chinese population 44% claim ability to write and read their mother tongue. If only persons of sixteen years of age and over are taken into account, the figure rises to 52%.
5. Of the Non-Chinese population approximately 90% were literate; in the case of children under eleven the figure drops to 87%.
6. Of the Chinese population 6% claim ability to speak English and 5% to read and write in that language.
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7. The Superintendent of Census, however, warns "There is of course a strong temptation to claim attainments which one does not possess, or possesses only in a very small degree. The figures are likely, therefore, to err by giving too favourable an impression of educational attainments, and this error is made from time to time. For this reason comparison with previous censuses is of uncertain value, and is also difficult on account of the different method for presentation of the results adopted in 1921,”
8. According to the Census report there were 119,008 children between the age of five and fourteen distributed as under:-
Hong Kong and Kowloon
New Territory
Afloat
88,481
17,940
12,587
Total
119,008
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9. Agriculture and fishing are the main occupations of the inhabitants of the rural districts. The rest of the Colony is a busy city and port, an important banking centre and a centre of retail trade; and a meeting place between the East and the West. As such, in addition to manual labourers, there is a high percentage of interpreters, clerks, accountants, shroffs, tallymen, shop-keepers and the like among the resident population.
10. The Director of Education derives his legal powers from the Education Ordinance of 1913 which requires all non- Government schools (unless specifically exempted) to register and to conform to regulations.
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11. Since 1920 he has been advised by a Board, of which he is ‘ex officio" chairman. This Board is a non-statutory body appointed by the Governor and consists of unofficial members at present 11 in number-together with the Senior Inspector of English and Vernacular Schools respectively.
12. The Government "provides" that is to say builds (or rents), equips and staffs a certain number of schools, English, Vernacular, Normal and Technical, the headmasters and mis- tresses of which are responsible to the Director. It also "aids" by means of grants, chiefly Capitation, a certain number of schools both English and Vernacular, conditionally on their subscribing to a Code approved by the Director; and, by means of subsidies, a considerable number of Vernacular schools in both urban and rural areas.
13. Control of these Aided schools is exercised through English and Vernacular Inspectors on the Director's staff, while the latter are called upon also to advise, instruct, and admonish a large and constantly changing body of unaided schools-boys schools, girls schools, day-schools, night-schools, "English" schools, Vernacular schools, middle, primary and kindergarten, urban and rural.
14. Education, being eagerly sought after by the Chinese, is neither compulsory nor free. Nor is poverty an absolute bar to learning; for several charitable societies, aided by the Govern- ment subsidy, contrive to admit pupils without fee, or at a very small charge while a number of Scholarships, both Government and other, assist the poor scholar to mount the educational ladder.
15. A school is defined as a place where ten or persons are habitually taught in one or more classes.
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16. A Vernacular school is defined as one in which Chinese is the medium of instruction, and an English school as one in which the medium of instruction is solely or chiefly English. In English schools attended by Chinese pupils, English and Chinese are studied side by side, the pari passu system requiring that promotion shall depend on proficiency in both languages.
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