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Present:
ACEC(OT)3rd(48)Minutes.
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION IN THE COLONIES.
Other Territories Sub-Committee.
Draft minutes of the 3rd Meeting of the Other Territories Sub-Committee of the A.C.E.C. held on Friday 16th July, 1948 to discuss the replies from the Hong Kong Government to the queries raised on the Hong Kong Grant Code by the Sub-Committee last year.
Mr. Burney (Chairman)
The Rev. H.M. Grace
Dr.
Harlow
Dr. Margaret Read
Sir Mark Young
Mr. T. R. Rowell (Director of Education, Hong Kong)
Mr. Cox
Miss Gwilliam
Mr. Robison.
Apclogies for non-attendance had been received from
Mr. Elliott.
1. QUOTA OF TEACHERS. The Sub-Committee at their meeting of the 19th March and 23rd October 1947 had queried the unduly high proportion of 14 teachers to 10 classes provided for in Part I, Section 19 of the Code, which reads as follows:
"The number of full time teachers whose salaries may be included in approved expenditure shall be in the proportion of 14 teachers to every 10 classes in addition to the Headmaster or Headmistress. Part time teachers may also be engaged for subjects such as Music, Art, Handwork and Physical Training, subject to the approval of the Director of Education".
2.
Mr. Rowell stated that it was now proposed to delete the second sentence; the effect of the deletion would be to include part time teachers in the quota of 14. He explained that this arrangement would allow each teacher a little less than two periods a day for correction which occupied a great part of the teacher's time. Whilst he did not intend to relieve teachers of correction work in their out-of-school time he considered that this time should be mainly devoted to the preparation of new work. In answer to a question, Mr. Rowell said that there were 17 Grant-in-Aid Schools, only one of which had Chinese as its medium of instruction; the rest had English. The morning periods were 40 and 35 minutes, the afternoon 30 minutes and the weekly school hours amounted to 271. In secondary classes there were 6 European teachers to 4 local teachers and 3 European teachers to 7 local teachers in the primary classes. 40 was the average number of pupils per class.
3.
In reply to a question by Dr. Harlow. whether, by restricting the number of teachers as now proposed, the Director would not be accused of cheese-paring, Mr. Rowell said that he did not think so as an investigation of the number of teachers employed by Grant-in- Aid Schools showed that schools did not use the full quota allowed by the Code.
4.
Mr. Rowell explained that there was little private coaching owing principally to the high fees charged by coaches.
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