No. 58.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.
The following Annual Report on the state of the Government Schools in Hongkong, for the Year 1976, is published for general information.
By Cominand,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 8th March, 1877.
[No. 13.]
H. E. WODEHOUSE, Acting Colonial Secretary.
HONGKONG, 14th February, 1877.
SIR, I have the honour to forward to you the Annual Report on Education for 1876. 2. From the Tables that form the appendix it will be seen that there was a marked increase in the attendance at all the schools, whether taken collectively, or in accordance with the classification usually adopted in these reports. This will be best shown by the following abstract:——
Increase at all the Schools,
Increase at the Government Schools,
Increase at the Grant-in-Aid Schools,
..12 per cent.
.13 11 .......11 17
**
1:
3. One very important feature in the history of the year is the great increase in the number of girls at the various schools. It may be stated thus:-
Increase at all the Schools,
Increase at the Government Schools,
Increase at the Grant-in-Aid Schools,
·
.27 per cent. ..30 11
.25
11
**
Although the number of girls bears but a small proportion to that of boys, being only about 1 to 5, vet in a place where female education is not merely neglected but looked upon as unnecessary, if not pemicious, it is gratifying to see prejudice yielding as it is doing to the dictates of common sense and Juty.
4. As regards the Central School, it would be superfluous to add anything to previous reports. The numbers are all but stationary; and this is due to but one cause, the want of accommoda- tion. Applications for admission are steadily increasing, and disappointments at refusal are becoming more mumerous and are being less patiently borne. As a remedy for all this cannot be far distant Now, although it cannot arrive in time to affect the current year, further notice of the school, its working, its aims, and its success, may therefore be deferred until the new building is occupied, and a more extended sphere of action thus opened up to it.
5. One drawback to the efficiency of the Village Schools has now been very happily removed. It had long been but too evident that the masters reserved their energies for the closing weeks of the year, instead of applying themselves with sustained effort to the whole year's work; and, it had been found that, in the Grant-in-Aid schools, the proportion of the grant which is handled to the masters has a most beneficial effect in maintaining steady application throughout the year, a modification of this plan was adopted in the case of the Village Schools. It amounted to this, that at the end of the year the schools were to be divided into three classes, Very Good, Good, and Fair; that masters whose schools were in the first rank would receive a bonus of $25 each; those of the econd $15 each; those of the third nil; and all below the third were to be recommended for dismissal. The classification was to depend primarily on the result of the annual examinations, but it was to be modified by the masters' attention to discipline and other points of order, as ascertained on occasions of inspection.
G. It may be premature to found too much confidence on the result of the first year's experiment, but that result amounted to this: that more attention was paid to the work, that the number of cholars did not fall off rapidly towards the close of the year, that on no previous occasion were the cholars present on the examination day so numerous, and that the amount and quality of the work done were never so satisfactory. Five schools were placed in the first rank, nine in the second, and the remaining fifteen in the third. Two or three at the end of the last list are very poor in many way, but there were circumstances, local and personal, connected with them that prevented the aloption of the severe measure which forms part of the scheme. It does not, therefore, follow that they will be so favourably dealt with on a future occasion. Two schools also were placed in this rank, which, if judged by the result of the examinations alone, would have been placed in the second; but the discipline und to their schools.
was so lax that any reward to the masters would have been injurious, both to themselves A table with the schools now referred to arranged in the order of their efficiency
will be found in its proper place in the appendix.