TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 19

A course length of 5 years

2.19

It seemed possible to condense the primary course to five years in most subjects. In the subject of Chinese, however, there appears to be a real problem because of the complexity of the language. The Government there- fore considers that such an important subject should not be put at risk and, furthermore, since a less pressurised primary course is highly desirable it does not recommend a 5-year primary course.

A course length of 7 years

2.20

The possibility of a 7-year course obtained by adding a pre- primary class and thus incidentally reducing the entry age by one year, has been examined.

2.21

At first glance this seems an attractive idea. On the assumption that the additional year would and should be of kindergarten type, i.e. an activity-centred course, it would help those children whose parents could not afford a full kindergarten course or who had no access to a convenient kindergarten. Furthermore this would not interfere with the rest of education as would happen if the entry age were simply lowered, and it would utilize vacant classrooms and avoid teacher redundancy.

2.22

However, on closer examination there appear to be a number of difficulties and disadvantages. These include the following:

(a)

(b)

Hong Kong schools are designed to handle multiples of 6 classes, i.e. designed for a 6-year course, and it would not be possible to keep all forms with an equal number of classes without wasting space or building additional classrooms on, to existing schools;

the scheme could only be effectively implemented after a massive teacher training programme, since new techniques would be required for teachers already trained; new teachers would also be required. Altogether about 2,200 teachers would need to be trained or re-trained;

(c)

the cost of the scheme plus the retraining exercise would be very high.

In view of these considerations, the idea of a 7-year course was rejected. It is therefore considered that the present 6-year primary course should be retained.

Reducing the age of entry

2.23

The Government examined carefully the effects of lowering the entry age to primary schools without altering the length of the primary course and it did seem at first glance that this would have some merit. At the same time there did not appear to be any great educational advantage as it would simply mean that children reached each stage of education earlier, i.e. when they were that much less mature. Given the present tendency towards

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