TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 199

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and for higher education. (This assumed market value may not of

course be fully realised when the proportion of the population

commanding some English is greatly increased.) In many of the longer

established schools the standard of both English and Chinese is seen

to be declining and in almost all secondary schools a mélange of

English and Chinese has developed within the language of instruction.

It is against this background that the whole question of language in

education is being reviewed by the government, as described in chapter

7.

2.18 Curriculum

Apart from the English schools (q.v.) and the

relatively small group of English-medium primary schools, which follow

curricula influenced in varying degrees by British or American models,

primary schools in Hong Kong are not differentiated by curriculum.

Their treatment of the curriculum, however, varies considerably. Many

still organise the subjects of the curriculum as independent courses

of study, treated formally, but there is a growing awareness of the value

of less formal 'child-centred' approaches which cut across the traditional

subject boundaries, and a growing number of schools, with the active

encouragement and assistance of the Education Department, are now

adopting the 'learning by doing' approach. (This approach is described

in the 1980 Green Paper, which proposes a policy of positive

discrimination in favour of schools adopting it.)

2.19

At the secondary level (both junior and senior secondary)

there are at present three types of school: grammar, technical and

prevocational, The differences between public-sector grammar and

technical schools were never very great and are becoming less marked

at the junior secondary level since many grammar schools now include

practical subjects in their curricula as far as space permits.