TNAG-1724-FCO40-2437-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 10

DR. HO : Sir, it is understood that expatriate teachers

in Chinese middle schools and in some secondary schools in

the New Territories feel rather frustrated because the

standard of English of the students in these schools is so

low that they cannot benefit from the scheme. Will the

Secretary inform this Council whether the Government has

any plans to rectify this situation?

SECRETARY FOR EDUCATION AND MANPOWER :

Sir, some teachers

may have found the standard lower perhaps than they .

expected but I do not think this can be a real problem.

These teachers have in fact been trained to teach English

as a foreign language, in fact their training envisages

that the pupils have no knowledge of English whatsoever.

So the kind of standard found in our schools cannot be

worse than envisaged in their training.