SINGAPORE
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has a devastating effect both upon the quality of education given, the nature of the teachers and the possibilities for educational experiment. However great attempts are being made by Government and voluntary agencies to reduce this kind of thing.
4. One delightful characteristic of some of these old established schools is a tradition of voluntary service by the older boys and girls who run, out of school hours, small schools for children for whom formal schooling is, as yet, unprovided. This kind of service to others is particularly creditable in the very materialistic atmosphere of a commercial city.
5. Another very satisfying characteristic of the education in Hong Kong is the friendly partnership between the voluntary agencies and Government based upon a generous grants system and upon delightful personal contacts between the members of the Education Department and of the voluntary agencies. This was particularly noticeable during a visit to the Aberdeen Industrial school run by the Silesian Brothers who are providing a technical education in a variety of skills to a very high degree and are most grateful to Government for the financial support that they are getting.
6.
With the political situation as it is, it is more necessary than ever now for Europeans to be able to maintain intercourse with the Chinese in their own language. It is unfortunate that it is so difficult to learn but Hong Kong Education Department has a group of first class Chinese Inspectors of Schools in whom I should imagine they can have great confidence.
1.
Singapore has the same quality of audacious enterprise as Hong Kong but matur degree. It has a population of 950,000 of whom about 120,000 are in all types of schools and there are another 100,000 children for whom to make provision. Singapore is accepting this challenge in a most exciting manner and the whole population has responded with enthusiasm both to a 10m year plan and to a supplementary plan which was launched on January 1st 1950, The Officer administering the Government, Sir Patrick McKerron has said that the motto for Singapore is Per ardua ad hoo. The Supplementary Plan as the Committee already know, envisages the opening of a number of Government schools whose medium is to be English, each one of which is to provide for children in two sessions daily. There is no need to repeat the details of the scheme as they have already been circulated, but it is worth recording that on January 17th I visited a number of the sites for this first group of schools and found the foundations dug and the material accumulating. When I saw them again on March 31st in many cases the roofs were
on and the first batch of schools would undoubtedly be ready to go in by June 1st as soon as the teachers were ready. The. teachers are recruited from a standard comparable to that of school certificate although they need not necessarily have passed the School Certificate. They are being trained in intensive three-month full-time courses at the new Training Centre on a hill in the centre, of Singapore. These men and women of all races and of a wide variety of age and background have responded to the stimulus of being pioneers of this educational adventure. They will be given opportunities once the scheme is under way to improve their own education and their own professional training. The only hesitation one has, and it seems ungracious to criticise so enterprising a scheme, is that quality may be
/sacrificed