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212. Government schools and grant schools are institutions designed and constructed on the lines of good class schools in Europe and America. Having been planned on approved lines and being conducted by teachers possessing a knowledge of modern hygiene they are usually well up to the mark in matters of hygienic importance.
213. Many of the subsidised schools and most of the unaided schools are institutions occupying one or more floors in old or newer tenement buildings. Such were designed for domestic purposes and not for schools and it is impossible to provide for the pupils satisfactory hygienic conditions in many of them.
214. Lighting and ventilation depend largely on the plan of construction and on proximity of neighbouring buildings. In narrow buildings of the shop-house type forming units in a block facing a narrow street and backing on a narrower lane, it is often impossible to get natural lighting and ventilation satisfactory for school purposes and this particularly applies to houses constructed before the 1903 Building Ordinance came into force. There are many schools where the lighting conduces to sight defects and where the ventilation leaves much to be desired.
215. The School Hygiene Branch of the Medical Department consists of the School Medical Officer, two Chinese School Medical Officers, one Lady Medical Officer (part time) and five School Nurses.
216. The purposes of a school medical service are not only to detect the sick and ailing in their early stages, but to seek for anomalies of growth and development, so that measures may be taken to prevent not only the progress of ill-health but also its causes. Its basis is the routine medical inspection of school children, and since they are collected together for definite periods they form a section of the community whose health conditions are comparatively easy to ascertain.
217. Except that they have been gazetted Inspectors under the Education Ordinance to give them power of entry into certain classes of schools the School Medical Officers have no powers under either the Education Ordinance or the Public Health (Sanitation) Ordinance. They co-operate with the Medical Officer of Health and with the Education Officers. They act as advisers to the Education Department but it rests with the latter to decide whether or not to accept the advice offered.
218. The duties of the School Medical Branch include: --
(1) inspection of school premises.
(2) physical examination and re-examination of pupils.