TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 37

for each of these classes about 160 copies of appropriate books. In addition, there should be a grant of $250 per class for the purchase of bookcases to house the libraries. Details of the phasing in and costing of this proposal are given in Appendix 4C.

4.38

As this scheme will present organisational problems in schools it will be necessary to carry out a pilot project in 1981/82 and then phase in the full scheme over 3 years so that adequate supervision of the introduction of the scheme can be provided by the Advisory Inspectorate. It will accordingly be necessary to strengthen the Library Services Section of the Inspectorate by at least one officer in order to provide the necessary support and training.

4.39

In order to make this scheme fully effective, it is essential that the purchase of books should be limited to those on a list drawn up by a library committee which should be set up within the curriculum development organisation. Furthermore, where suitable books are not available, publishers should be invited to produce them. The publishers are likely to respond since. the library scheme should ensure an adequate demand for a limited number of titles.

Furniture and equipment

4.40

The majority of the schools in Hong Kong have only the bare minimum of furniture and equipment. Teaching-aids and other resource materials usually have to be stored in the staff rooms or the general purpose rooms. Shelves in the classroom are still rare, although class teachers find them extremely useful and more schools are having shelves installed. Classrooms in some of the older schools are not even equipped with a power socket and this means that many teachers cannot use simple audio-visual aids such as a tape- recorder or projector.

4.41

Classrooms in schools now being built are slightly larger, and the additional space is utilized to provide shelves along one wall to store teaching and resource materials and a sink to facilitate art and craft and other practical work. Power points have been supplied in new schools for some

years.

4.42

It is now recommended that wherever possible, existing classrooms should be provided with shelves, sinks and power points, provided that, in each individual case it can be achieved at reasonable cost preferably during major redecoration work. Priority should generally be given to schools adopting the 'learning by doing' approach where these facilities are particularly necessary.

4.43

Existing school furniture is on the whole rather heavy and old- fashioned in design, while in fact it is very important that schools desks and chairs should be strong, they should also be light in weight so that they can be easily re-arranged for different teaching situations. It is also important that the desks should have level tops so that they can be put together to form small tables for group work.

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