12
Technical education is gaining favour but is no less rigorous in its
demands on the pupil: technical subjects are quite properly offered
not as easy options for the less able but rather as part of a co-
ordinated curriculum which attempts to encourage the development of the
whole person through complementary intellectual and practical skills.
Schools are finding it difficult to identify and meet the needs of
pupils who are not academically inclined.
8.15
Part of the problem undoubtedly lies in the rapid pace at
which the public-sector school system has recently expanded: the system
has in a sense outrun itself. Early attempts were made by the
Curriculum Development Committee to address the problem by issuing
flexible syllabuses built around a common core and allowing adaptation
within schools to the needs of particular groups of pupils. This has
proved to be only moderately successful for various reasons: the resources
available for curriculum development have been limited, schools have
been hard pressed for sufficient space and facilities to diversify the
curriculum, teachers have had insufficient experience of less able
pupils at this level to be able to understand and provide for their needs,
there has been tension between the language needs of pupils and the
language practices of individual schools, there is disparity of provision
in the public sector and a growing inability to reconcile an anxious
concern for academic standards with a recognition that different kinds
of standard should be evolving for different kinds of pupil. There
appears to be a growing feeling that the situation is too complex to
be successfully tackled by individual schools.
8.16
This prompts several related questions. Should Hong Kong be
moving towards a form of comprehensive schooling? Should there be
greater diversity within the school system to provide more appropriate
forms of education for the less able? Should there be positive
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