56
57
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presumably, to the short school time given to that language, that they have to be specially prepared, sometimes for a year, for study in a Chinese University, should they elect that instead of Hong Kong University.
53
Seventh, and perhaps worst of all, this "one-path system serves the needs of a minority,* those who do in fact wish to become University students, at the expense of the majority, who either have no such ambition or are unlikely, for one reason or another, to be able to realise it. They lack ability, perhaps, or at any rate that special kind of ability which succeeds in examinations; or their parents may become unable or unwilling to pay school fees after a time. In certain Government schools, where fees are doubled on the pupil's promotion from Class 4 to Class 3, that is, to the " upper school," many leave on this account at the end of their year in Class 4, nearly always asking their Head Master for a written declaration that their education has been carried satisfactorily to this distance. Though here again it is true that the problem of the uncompleted course is not confined to Hong Kong, and in the nature of things is likely to be found anywhere where fees are charged and compulsion does not operate, yet it would be a great improvement if the work of the school could be so planned as to reduce considerably the numbers of the "half-baked."
That the curriculum of the schools is sometimes ill-suited to the needs of the scholars is especially evident in the Colony's non-urban areas. Among the schools visited by the writer was one at Un Long in the New Territories, and another at Cheung Chau on the island of that name. Both are Government schools. The former, in a completely rural area, gives the children a three years English course under Chinese teachers. They begin to learn to read and write English hardly to speak it, nor do they understand any but the simplest phrases when spoken to them. About half of them, perhaps, continue their education in other schools. The other half return to the villages to which they belong, and become engaged, like their ancestors before them for many generations, in the work of tilling the soil, an occupation not less valuable, on any broad view, than that of the clerk, the teacher, or the engineer. It is difficult to imagine of what use their smattering of English can be to them, though most of their time in this Government school will have been given to its acquisition.
The school at Cheung Chau serves the population of a large village or small town in which the only industry of any importance is fishing. A comment similar to that above is applicable.
It is often easier to point out defects in a system than to indicate practicable remedies. Some suggestions, believed by the writer to be practicable and of some value, will be offered later in this Report. Meanwhile it must not be forgotten that there is a real and large demand for "
black-coated" labour in Hong Kong (nearly one quarter of the males are so employed) Xand also that there is an insistent demand on the part of Chinese parents for their children to
be taught English. A Government school in the City of Victoria which has hitherto taught English would soon be empty if it ceased to do so. There is, however, some evidence of over- production of clerks or would-be clerks. In a recent examination for appointments as Probationer Clerks in the Government Service, there were 470 candidates, of whom only 84 passed a preliminary test in dictation. And to a recent advertisement offering a post to a clerk with a knowledge of English there were 140 replies in a few days. The fact that, when the Junior Technical School opened in February, 1983, there were eleven applicants for every vacant place, is an encouraging indication that the Chinese themselves may be beginning to lose their age-long veneration for ink.
The educational system of the Colony, some of the chief features of which have been discussed above, could be improved in important respects. At present it is fettered by an examination, and needs to be set free. This problem will be further dealt with in the next section. Besides that, the time-schedule of the system is wrong. The School Certificate should be an examination for boys and girls, not for young men and women. Of course, the fact that the examination, or most of it, is set entirely in a foreign language is a serious difficulty and is quite enough to account for some retardation as compared with England. But it does not preclude an earlier start with their English education, by those who want it, than is at present made by most of them a welcome tendency towards this has already been noted. There is some evidence that the four or five years of school life which boys and girls have before they apply for admission to English schools (once more, the term means schools where
Less than ten per cent. of those entering the upper school, ie.. the three top classes, in one of the two big Government schools for boys, have hitherto passed Matriculation. This means that about five per cent, of all entrants to the school have passed Matriculation; perhaps about three per cent. have actually
entered the University.
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the medium of instruction is English) are not used to as much advantage as they might be. It is not uncommon for a boy or girl of twelve to have learned, after perhaps five years in a Vernacular School, a little classical Chinese and very little else at all.*
The Chinese are very far from being an unintelligent race, and in Hong Kong their children by the age of twelve should have learned--it is believed that in many Chinese schools outside Hong Kong they have learned to read and write their own language within appropriate limits, to perform simple calculations, preferably with the Arabic notation rather than with the abacus, and to understand something of the big world surrounding the little world which they knew well enough. Such an overhaul and speeding-up of vernacular primary education m Hongkong would give the English schools a much better start than they have now. It is also desirable that the methods employed in selecting entrants to English schools, from the usually large number of candidates, should be reviewed in the light of educational practice and experience elsewhere. There is reason to think that the tests now in use do not always select the best candidates; they are of necessity, in so far as they are written tests, set and marked by Chinese teachers, with the result that the European Head Masters or Head Mistresses have no effective voice in the selection of their own recruits. The use of carefully planned intelligence tests, which the Vernacular Inspectors might be asked to draw up, would probably improve
matters.
(4). THE SCHOOL CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION,
This examination is exercising, as already demonstrated, such a dominating influence on the schools of the Colony, that it deserves a note to itself. It is to be conducted by the University of Hongkong: the Regulations issued by that body are set out in the Appendix. Up to 1932 the schools took the Cambridge Junior Local Examination in Class 2, the penultimate year of school life, and Matriculation in Class 1. In that year it was decided to abolish the Junior Local, which accordingly was not held in 1933, and to substitute for the Senior Local After (Matriculation) & School Certificate Examination. There was no Matriculation in 1934. some discussion it was settled that, under certain conditions, the School Certificate should admit to the University,
This change was the result of a demand from the schools, and the task of conducting the new examination was undertaken by the University with some reluctance. The advocates of reform wished to increase the range of the final examination, so as to make it include what one of them described as the seven basic subjects of a good general education, viz.: English, Chinese, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, History, and Geography," with a pass mark com- pulsory in each. At the same time they wished to divorce the examination entirely from Matriculation, which they would have postponed for a year, and to reduce the syllabus in each subject, since they regarded the then existing syllabuses as too heavy
It is evident that they have not got all that they asked for. The Certificate Examination is not entirely divorced from Matriculation, and the examination as a whole still appears a very formidable task. It has to be remembered that in four groups out of five papers are set, and answers have to be written, in English. The minimum number of papers is nine, the maximum twelve. The examination is to take place in June, a month when humidity and high temperatures combine to make the climate very trying.
The task is certainly formidable enough, nor are the Regulations beyond criticism. For example, in Group V candidates may offer only two out of the three subjects. This means in practice that most of the schools conducted by religious bodies-i.e., most of the Grant-Aided schools, regarding Biblical knowledge as a subject in which their pupils must be examined-omit either History or Geography; the consequences have already been commented upon in this Report. Again, in Physics a pupil may pass either without showing any knowledge of electricity and magnetism, or without showing any knowledge of heat, light, and sound. In English, a candidate must pass either in English Grammar, including parts of speech, parsing, analysis, and explanation of idioms, or in knowledge of certain prescribed portions of English literature- A Midsummer Night's Dream being one of the choices
What this learning has sometimes amounted to appears from the following information given to the writer by the Principal of the Junior Technical School, which was opened as recently as 1933:-" During the first two years of the course many applicants of 13 years of age were found who could read' a Chinese newspaper. i.e., name all the ideographs correctly, without having any knowledge of the meaning. They were inclined to feel that asking them to explain the meaning was unfair, as only after a certain number of years in which they learned the ideographs parrot-wise would they be told their meaning,"
"Some," it is added, "do not know the Arabic numerals."
How is a Chinese boy to "explain" in English the English idiomatic expression "there is nothing the matter with him "?
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