2
5
to social
wit);
and
educational shortcomings will probably make it slightly more difficult than otherwise for Hong Kong stand the weight of cultural influence in the years after 1997;
China's
political,
but if Hong Kong's 'current social and economic systems and lifestyle' is to 'remain unchanged' (as promised by China in the Joint Declaration), it will be mainly account of the territory continuing to be an inter- national financial, shipping, communications, services and
will light manufacturing centre. This, however, require a significant improvement in local education.
The following comments are discursive rather than analy- tical. But we take it from your memorandum that a reply from
on the issues rather
rather than
than analyses them in great depth is sufficient for your purposes.
us
which comments
Hong Kong's education problems
ine
..!
The Vice 6 Hong Kong faces serious problems in education. Chancellor of
University,
told Wang Gangwu, Hong Kong
most
ale of its first-year students
sense proper
of the word. He is pressing
some
read,
write
think
the other day that educated in the the Government to establish an extra year in which the first-
students would be
to taught year
and clearly. As things stand, they go to university having sat
four highly-competitive exams over the previous years; are crammed full of physics, chemistry and
are obtainable where the highest entry marks mostly incapable of thinking for, or expressing, themselves. The Chinese University has the same problem but it has the traditional Chinese four-year undergraduate course So is not faced with quite the same difficulty as the English-medium Hong Kong University.
maths and yet
ale
7 These problems stem, in the main, from the rather hosty decision taken by the Government in late 1978 that universal
(introduced in
would 1970)
be primary education
expanded to age fifteen. Three years of free and compulsory secondary education was introduced from September 1979. This placed enormous pressures on the secondary school system; pressures that have not been fully eased ten years
There are later. not enough schools; classroom sizes average 45; school infra- structures are not adequate; quality teaching is at a premium despite Hong Kong schoolteachers being the highest paid Asia;
children who emerge from three generally unsatisfactory compulsory schooling and to proceed to the final two years, are faced with an unrelen- ting round of competitive examinations to gain entry to the small number of tertiary places available. The emphasis is
hence pupils go for on marks; hence
the sciences; and even those brightest who do win places are not good university material.
8
and those
in
of
years who want
Because of the shortage of places in the two universities, the Baptist College (a third university) and the two poly- techs, only 16% of those enrolled in the sixth form go
on
/to
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