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The support services for new arrival children will include:
building nine new secondary schools by the 1999 academic year, in addition to five new primary schools to be completed by the end of 1997 academic year, at a non-recurrent cost of $ 479 million and a recurrent cost of $298 million a year;
provision of school-based support services for some 9,600 new arrival students at a recurrent cost of $ 21 million; and
lower the admission age from 18 to 15 for all adult education courses.
On enhancing quality of school education, Mr Wong said the various measures will include:
extension of reduction of class size to Primary 5;
provision of further support for implementing Target Oriented Curriculum and School Management Initiative;
conversion of an additional 126 uni-sessional/bi-sessional primary schools to whole-day operation between 1997 and 2000;
an increase of 95 student guidance teacher (SGT) between 1997 and 1999 to improve the SGT to pupil ratio from 1:2500 to 1:1680;
provision of 350 additional graduate teacher posts in primary schools in the 1997 academic year;
an increase of textbook allowance to students by 40 per cent;
strengthening support services provided for band five students; and
provision of an additional Clerical Assistant to each aided primary school with 28 to 35 classes.
Regarding the improvement of special education, the government will implement the priority areas of the recommendations put forward by the Board of Education Sub-committee on Special Education. The recommendations include revision of the provision of school nurses, improvement of the provision of boarding staff, improvement of the provision of boarding staff and provision of a resource centre for special education teachers. The non-recurrent expenditure is $4 million and the recurrent expenditure is $32 million a year. Besides, the government will introduce a pilot scheme to promote integration of students with special education needs in mainstream schools at a recurrent cost of $20 million a year.