CONFIDENTIAL (2)
Sir,
Government House,
Hong Kong.
8th June, 1938.
I have the honour to refer to Mr. Ormsby-Gore's confidential
despatch of the 5th of November, 1937, transmitting a copy of a report
by a Sub-Committee of the Advisory Committee on Education in the
Colonies regarding the secondary education policy in this Colony.
In this connection I would invite your attention to my despatch
No.218 of the 15th of March, 1938, in reply to your circular despatch
of the 14th of December, 1937, regarding the Secondary School Certi-
ficate Examinations and the Teaching of English in Secondary Schools
in the Dependencies.
2. I take it that the comments of the Advisory Committee on the
nature and content of the Secondary School Course are to be read in
conjunction with the remarks in the memorandum which accompanied your
circular despatch, to which reference is made above, on the ideal
curriculum for secondary schools overseas.
Particular reference is
made to the advisability of including in the course, in addition to
the other subjects, about which there is general agreement, such
subjects as manual training, music, training in the arts and crafts,
hygiene, physical training, local civics and geography and history.
3. I asked the Director of Education, to put to the Board of
Education for an expression of its views the question whether music
and the other arts and crafts should be taught in Hong Kong schools to
Chinese children in European or Chinese form. The Board resolved that
in its opinion in Government and Grant-in-aid schools in principle it
is desirable that every boy and every girl should be taught some form
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
MALCOLM MACDONALD, M.P.,
&c.,
&C.,
2
87