Sessional_Paper_1891 — Page 292

288

7. EDUCATIONAL EXPENDITURE OF THE GOVERNMENT.-The sum total spent by the Government in the year 1890 for educational purposes ($68,194.75), amounted, after deducting the school fees ($12,113.00) paid into the Treasury, to $56,081.75. The principal items included in this sum are the following:-Victoria College $19,222, Grants-in-aid (including Building Grant) $19,332, Government District Schools $7,046, Government Girls School $2,459, Inspectorate of Schools $4,377, Govern- ment Scholarship $1,187, Student Interpreters $520, etc. The foregoing expenditure, compared with the expenditure of the preceding year, constitutes a moderate increase, caused principally by additions. to the salaries of the staff of Victoria College, by the establishment of a new Girls School, and by increase of Grants given to Voluntary Schools. But this whole increase has its deepest source in the natural extension of the educational movement which is irresistibly pushed forward by the urgent demands of a growing population, increasing from year to year in its appreciation of the value of education as well as in sheer numbers. The total educational expenditure of the year 1890 amounts to $7.34 per scholar, so far as the Government is concerned. But Schools like St. Joseph's College, the Italian Convent, the Diocesan School, the Hongkong Public School, the Church Mission Home and Orphanage, the Berlin Mission and other Mission Schools, doing sound educational work for the benefit of the community, incurred additional educational expenditure, not included in the foregoing figures, and amounting (as will be seen from Table XI appended to this Report) to $60,646.51, that is to say to $41,909.39 over and above the Grants-in-Aid ($18,737.12) paid to those Schools by the Government in February, 1890. The cost to Government of the education provided by the various classes of Schools under the supervision of the Government varies widely. Each scholar in average attendance educated in Victoria College cost the Government in 1890, $25.34, at the Government Girls School (being in its first year and charging only half fees) $70.49, at the Government District Schools $8.88, at the Grant-in-Aid Schools $5.62. Nothing can be plainer than the fact that the system of payment by results, as applied to the Grant-in-Aid Schools of Hong- kong, is very much cheaper, whilst equally effective, and to parents more satisfactory, than the system of Government Schools.. The Grant-in-Aid system of Hongkong, essentially differing in some points from the scheme in force in England, commends itself, by the smoothness, cheapness and effectiveness of its working, more and more, from year to year. In view of the annual increase (by immigration from the mainland) of our population, and the consequent annual increase of our educational needs and expenditure, a definite policy concerning educational expenditure is an absolute necessity. I am decidedly of opinion, and I have continuously urged it upon the Govern- ment during the last eight years, that we ought to follow in Hongkong the leading principles adopted in 1883 by the Indian Government, which, declaring the elementary education of the mass of the people the principal object of the Education Department, offered to hand over any of its Colleges or Schools (devoted to secondary education) in suitable cases to bodies of local educationists willing to undertake their management under the provisions of the Grant-in-Aid system. The Royal Commis- sion on Indian Education (1883), made the following suggestions, clearly applicable to Hongkong. "Secondary education in any district should be left to the Grant-in-Aid system" (Report, p. 414): "No direct departmental effort should be made in the field of secondary education" (Report, p. 415). "The discontinuance of any general system of education, entirely provided by Government (that is by Government Schools) is anticipated with the gradual advance of the system of Grants-in-Aid, but the progress of education is not to be checked in the slightest degree by the abandonment of a single school to probable decay." (Indian Education Dispatch, 1854, quoted in Report, p. 23.) "All Directors of Public Instruction should aim at the gradual transfer to local (native) management of Government Schools giving secondary instruction," (Report, p. 596). "The fact that any (Government) School giving secondary education raises more than 60 per cent. of its entire expenditure from fees, should be taken as affording a presumption that the transfer of such school to local management can be safely effected." (Report, p. 467.) " A periodically increasing provision should be made in the educational budget for the expansion of Aided Institutions." (Report, p. 583.) The proportion of educational expenditure to general revenue is an important consideration. I find that in 1881 to 1882, (no later data being at land), the Government of Bombay spent on education (after deducting all school-fees, but including cost of school-buildings), 23.2 per cent., Madras, 14.3 per cent., and Bengal, 6.98 per cent. of its total revenues. In 1889, the Colony of Mauritius, with a revenue of Rs 87,44,864, spent on education (exclusive of Buildings) Rs 4,05,021 or 4.6 per cent. The Government of the Straits Settlements devoted, in 1888, out of a revenue of $3,858,108, the sum of $143,109, or 3.7 per cent. to the current expenses of the Education Department (cost of Buildings not included). The Colony of Hongkong, having a revenue of $1,995,220, spent in the year 1890, as above stated, the sum of $56,081 on the ordinary purposes of education (exclusive of Buildings), being 2.8 per cent. of the total revenue.

8. NATURE OF THE EDUCATION GIVEN.-We have in Hongkong the following distinctions. There are, in the first instance, Schools giving a Chinese education in the Chinese classical language. In 1890, there were as many as 86 such Schools at work under the "Education Department, (28 Government Schools and 58 Grant-in-Aid Schools), giving to a total of 3,955 scholars, the kind of education which an ordinary Village School anywhere in the Empire of China gives, but with the addition (in the case of 28 Government Schools with 862 scholars) of the rudiments of Arithmetic and Geography, and (in the case of the 58 Grant-in-Aid Schools with 3,093 scholars) with the further addition of Christian teach-