TNAG-0251-FCO40-287-Education-policy-of-government-of-Hong-Kong-1970 — Page 31

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The initial programme of providing an additional 100,000 places is approximately equivalent to the building of 100 schools of 24 classrooms each. The construction of ten schools each year for ten years is not a programme beyond the capital resources of Hong Kong.

PROVISION OF TEACHERS

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More difficult than the provision of capital will be the provision of suitably trained and qualified teachers. To educate an extra 100,000 children an additional 4,000 teachers will be required, of whom about 1,500 must be teachers of practical subjects.

The present output of the Colleges of Education is immediately absorbed into the teaching profession. In order to meet the rate of expansion outlined an additional 700 teachers would be required each year for the next six years

This number must include about 250 teachers of practical subjects each year.

OT BO.

These teachers must be at least two-year trained, and therefore the output of the Colleges of Education must be doubled for this period and then subsequently run at a substantially higher level than at present.

It is believed that fuller use could be made of the facilities of the Colleges of Education by some form of bi-sessional working, though in the long term an additional College will undoubtedly be required.

In addition it should be noted that because there is at present no significant training scheme for technical teachers there is already an acute shortage. There is, therefore, also an urgent need for facilities for training suitable teachers to introduce practical subjects into existing secondary classes.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SCHEME

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As soon as possible a beginning should be made on a programme to provide Junior Secondary Schools. The size and design of the schools could be settled later but the present "standard" secondary school of 24 classrooms appears suitable for the new purpose, and has been used as the basis for the present calculations.

Junior Secondary Schools of this size should be built at the minimum rate of 10 per year and initially should be provided in the areas of densest population. They should accept primarily students from the neigh- bourhood of the school.

To begin with the Junior Secondary Schools should operate on a bi-sessional basis, in order to provide universal secondary education as quickly as possible.

By the end of the sixth year there should be enough Junior Secondary Schools working on a bi-sessional basis to provide the 100,000 additional places which are required.

The introduction of universal secondary education could be further accelerated if, at the beginning of this building scheme, all existing Government and aided secondary schools should introduce bi-sessional working in Forms I, II and III. This would have to be done in one form for each of three years, and should immediately provide more than 10,000 addit- ional places at each of the three levels. If this were done four years of the programme would suffice to provide the additional places necessary to enable all the students to continue their schooling for three years of secondary work.

Once the development of Junior Secondary Schools is well under way, a start should be made on extending aid to suitable schools which are at present private, in order that eventually the aim of having an aided place for every child up to the age of employment might be fulfilled.

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