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is too wide for the students to see the blackboard, another 8' must be cut off the side, an area of 96 square feet. In the end we are left with 154 square feet of the room to be used by the students. As each student must have 10 square feet of this area, only 15 students are permitted in this room measuring 360 square feet. Any more would be called "overcrowding", and the school would be prosecuted. Yet, in a room of 360 square feet, surely 35 students would be reasonable. Instead they have 15.
So when we read of overcrowding in schools, we should bear in mind that the permitted number is decided by the position of the windows, not by the size of the room. Several years ago permission was sometimes given to use fluorescent lighting if the windows were badly placed; now, although rents are higher, this concession is refused. Successive Directors of Education have stated their disagreement with the regulations; one rebel official once suggested burning the regulations. The Medical Department blames the Education Department, while the Education Department swears it is the fault of the Medical Department; and while these officials have their fun, schools suffer, and children are deprived of their schooling. May I ask when this discrimination will cease? When will the Education Department begin to help instead of hinder private schools?
If the Medical and Health Department would take a look at some of the tenements, new multi-storey slums like Mirador Mansion, and the shocking conditions in our own resettlement blocks, they might have less to criticize in little, struggling schools. Why do they control them as schools in any case, since they force them to register as "business"?
While speaking of education, I should like to mention briefly the subject of the heavy burden of examinations, as children study in very difficult circumstances, especially in their crowded homes. In one of our school text-books the following words appear, and I quote:
"The old School Certificate and Higher School Certificate examinations (in U.K.) were abolished in 1951 for very good reasons. Today very few people would welcome them back."
Again, I quote:
"The change from the School Certificate to the GCE Examination had the support of the United Kingdom Ministry of Education, the Universities, teachers, parents, and pupils."
Does this mean that the local authorities imagine they know more than all the educators in Britain? Our system here is still following the old method of insisting that to obtain a certificate a child must pass in certain groups of subjects. His mind is then burdened with parrot-like learning of subjects for which he has no appetite, and which
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he will forget as soon as the examination is over. The modern way of education is to encourage the child, at least from Form 4 upwards, to study the subjects he can do best and in which he is interested, and not to penalize him if he is good at arts but not at science, and vice versa.
The root of the trouble is that Government Departments, without any electorate to worry about, are dilatory on these matters; the adoption of the White Paper on Education in the face of almost unanimous criticism, is an indication of the way in which Government rides rough-shod over public opinion.
Now I would like to speak for a moment on economy. I am sure there are others with more experience than I who will speak on this subject. Still, I should like to have my little say. Two years ago, at this debate, I warned that the rising cost of land was damaging to Hong Kong as a whole, especially as it was raising rents beyond the capacity of the tenants to pay. Little did I imagine that within so short a time the situation would result in a virtual stoppage in the building trade. The greed of the Government and the greed of the landlords and speculators, must take their full share of the blame. It does not take an experienced economist to see that an economy must collapse if wealth is accumulated at the top, while there is no foundation for the roots of our society, the people; it is patent that prosperity must be built on a thriving industry which does not leave the people penniless and I might add homeless, and not on a Government Treasury bulging with the hard-earned pence of the poor. An economist who recently visited Hong Kong said: "Hong Kong's economy is shaky, and unless drastic steps are taken in the immediate future, the result could be chaos." This must be obvious to us all: we see building sites idle, half-empty shops, increased unemployment, businesses and schools closing.
What has Government done to meet this faltering in our economy? The Government has raised the rents on the houses of the poorest; it has doubled the water charges; raised the fees in certain schools; there is talk of higher transport fares; all the monopolies, including the rice monopoly which controls even the food of the people, are standing by to catch the last scrapings. Just how much blood can be squeezed out of a patient without killing him? The economist I quoted went on to say: "The only way to correct the impending danger would be to impose higher profits levy, a fairer taxation system, and a budget that would benefit the masses." This is exactly the reverse of the way in which the Government here is meeting the economic problems of the past year.
I am not an economist, but I have heard the opinions of many. I believe that the Government could give our industry a break by
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