In the lower primary classes of the Ying Wa Girls' English School a course was given in Mandarin parallel to that in Cantonese in Chinese literature and composition so that children learnt to read, write and speak in that dialect. Other schools also devoted some time to Mandarin and during the year there was an inter-school Mandarin speech contest.
The Heep Yuun school interested its scholars in gardening and each boarder and each form of day girls had its own plot.
Apart from these distinctions, the curriculum followed very much on the lines of that in the boys' schools, though needlework and some domestic science was added.
(c) Other schools.
56 subsidized primary schools for girls had a maximum attendance of 4,446; the subsidies paid amounted to $29,910 (£1,869), i.e. $6.70 per pupil: 201 non-subsidized day schools had a maximum enrolment of 17,528. The fees at these schools varied from $1 to $3 per mensem, and the salaries paid to teachers in these schools were somewhat lower than those of male teachers, the average being about $20 (£1.5s) per mensem.
The 30 non-subsidized night schools with a maximum enrolment of 1,507 were practically all free schools run by charitable bodies for the benefit of the poor.
18 scholarships tenable at Belilios Girls School were awarded to those girls from these subsidized and non-subsidized schools who were fit to enter Class 8. Entrants were expected to have begun the study of English and it is probably for this reason that English is taught in a greater number of girls' primary schools than boys, no knowledge of English being required for entrance to Class 8 in a boys' school.
SECONDARY EDUCATION.
(a) Provided.
Thirty-three European girls were receiving a secondary education at the co-educational Central British School during 1939. The school curriculum has already been referred to in the chapters dealing with secondary education and it only remains to add that when boys were studying physics or chemistry the girls were working under a specialist teacher in the well-appointed domestic science rooms or studying botany. Apart from science the girls followed the same course of studies as the boys and took the same external examinations.
Belilios Public School, mentioned earlier in this chapter, had 120 girls in its secondary department all of whom studied biology in place of the chemistry and physics in the curriculum of corresponding boys' schools. Apart from this the course followed the usual lines including arithmetic and simple mathematics, English, Chinese, geography and history. The fees were $4 per mensem.
Government also provided the Eastern District Vernacular School for Girls. Formerly the school served to train female vernacular teachers, but with the opening of the Teachers Training College no recruitment was made to the normal classes in September, 1939, and when the present normal classes have completed their courses the school will be solely a middle (or secondary) school. The maximum enrolment for the year was 171, the fees being $72 per annum.
The