TNAG-0658-FCO40-807-Policy-of-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-1977 — Page 10

Item 1

"Concern about impending redundancies of teachers

owing to a decline in the birth rate

It is certainly true that a decline in the birth rate in recent years has led to a drop in the number of children in the primary age-group from 641,200 in 1971 to 535,100 in 1976, and this is expected to fall to approximately 480,700 in 1979. Thus the total enrolment in Government and aided primary schools has fallen from 570,668 in 1971, when free primary education was introduced, to 520,476 in 1976.

2.

Government policy since the 1965 White Paper on Education has been that expansion should be through the aided sector wherever possible, and, as a result of this, all new primary schools are operated by sponsors on a fully-aided basis. New primary schools continue to be constructed, despite the fall in the age-group, on account of the movement of population to the New Towns and other developing areas, and to meet Government's policy that no child should be required to travel more than 0.4 km to primary school. Consequently enrolment in aided schools has only fallen from 499,883 in 1971 to 484,567 in 1976. The teacher redundancy problem arising from this decline has hitherto been resolved by a Placement Service operated by the Education Department, which has, since its introduction in 1975, successfully placed all apparently redundant aided primary school teachers that required such assistance. With the reduction of the intake into full- time teacher training courses at the Colleges of Education from 874 in 1974 to 300 in 1977, it is not expected that there will be any significant problem of redundancy in future years, although naturally no guarantee can be given that the placement service will continue to achieve 100%

success.

3.

The main brunt of the fall in the primary school age-group has been borne by the Government sector, where no new schools have been built since 1965, and where enrolment has fallen from 70,785 in 1971 to 35,909 in 1976. Since 1971, the Education Department has recruited no additional certificated masters for these schools and has redeployed surplus staff to other parts of the Department, but clearly it was not possible to tolerate for ever the increasing wastage of public funds - at $30 million per annum -

currently estimated that is incurred by the continued employment of surplus staff in under-utilized schools. After consultation with the Board of Education concerning the recommendation of the Special Comission on Certificated Masters in 1973 that Government primary schools be dis- established, the Director of Education proposed that a Government primary school sector should be retained so long as there was a public demand for it, and that teachers surplus to operational requirements should be given the choice of redeployment to other jobs within the Education Department or in other departments, or of early retirement in the public interest. This proposal was approved by the Governor-in- Council and announced publicly on July 6th 1977.

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