Sessional_Paper_1897 — Page 312

No.

307

21

No. 24.

HONGKONG.

THE EDUCATIONAL REPORT FOR 1896.

Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor,

EDUCATION Department,

HONGKONG, 13th April, 1897.

SIR,-I have the honour to forward to you the Annual Report on Education for the year 1896. 2. GENERAL EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS.-The total number of Educational Institutions of all descriptions, known to have been at work in the Colony of Hongkong during the year 1896, amounts to 215 Schools with an enrolment of 9,686 scholars. More than one half of these, viz. 5,178 scholars attended 101 Grant-in-Aid Schools under the supervision of this Department; 2,462 scholars attended 17 Government Schools; 1,625 scholars were under instruction in 89 Kaifong Schools, and 421 scholars in 8 unclassed public or private Schools. As regards the nationality of the above scholars, exact statistics cannot be given, but I may say that of the 9,686 scholars who attended local Schools in the year 1896; about 6,872 scholars were Chinese and 2,814 non-Chinese. Compared with the enrolment of the preceding year (236 Schools with 10,876 scholars), these figures show a decrease, caused by the renewed outbreak of plague during the first few months of the year 1896, and amounting to 21 Schools with 1,190 scholars. This decrease in school attendance occurred principally in the previously overcrowded central part of the city (Chungwan District) where the Grant-in-Aid Schools alone lost, in the year 1896, as many as 860 scholars, and in the villages where the attendance was reduced by 386 scholars. On the other hand the districts chiefly affected by the previous outbreak of plague in 1894, shewed in 1896 a marked increase of attendance which partially balanced the losses which the attendance suffered in other districts.

3. DECENNIAL STATISTICS OF SCHOOLS UNDER THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT.-The total number of Schools subject to supervision and examination on the part of the Education Department (exclusive of Queen's College and the Police School) amounted in the year 1896 to 116 Schools, as compared with 90 Schools in the year 1886, and 41 Schools in the year 1876. The total number of Scholars enrolled in this same class of Schools during the year 1896 amounted to 6,313 scholars, as compared with 5,844 scholars in 1886, and 2,922 scholars in 1876. It will thus be seen that, while the number of Schools and scholars was actually doubled during the ten years from 1876 to 1886, there has been, during the last ten years an increase of indeed 26 Schools but of 469 scholars only. This abnormal proportion explains itself partly by the withdrawal from the Education Department of 1 School (Queen's College) which at the time figured in these returns with 1,012 scholars, and by the effects. of the plague on the returns of the years 1894 and 1896, which reduced the attendance in all Chinese Schools very materially, while it but slightly diminished the number of Schools at work during the last decade.

4. TRIENNIAL STATISTICS OF SCHOOLS UNDER THE EDUCATION DEPATMENT. For the reasons mentioned in the preceding paragraph the number of scholars attending Schools under the Education Department has sensibly diminished during the last three years, the annual decrease amounting to 1,360 scholars in 1894, 454 scholars in 1895, and 479 scholars in 1896.

5. COMPARATIVE STATISTICS of Schools UNDER THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT WITH REFERENCE TO SCHOOL FEES.-Of the whole number (6,313) of scholars who attended, during the year 1896, the 116 Schools under the supervision of the Education Departinent, there were about 82 per cent. (5,178 scholars) enrolled in 101 Grant-in-Aid Schools receiving a Christian education whilst about 18 per cent. or 1,135 scholars attended 15 Government Schools receiving a secular education. Both the Grant-in-Aid Schools and the Government Schools offer purely Chinese instruction free of all charge, and the mass of the population desire no other than Chinese education. It is only in the case of Schools giving a European education (in English or Portuguese) that 12 Grant-in-Aid Schools and one of the Government Schools under the Education Department charge school fees, varying from half a dollar, to three dollars a month. An absolutely free European education is offered in the English language by 8 Grant-in-Aid Schools, and by 5 Government Schools, in the Portuguese language by 3 Grant-in-Aid Schools, and in the Chinese language by 3 Grant-in-Aid Schools. It may be of interest to note, with regard to the whole number of scholars who attended, in the year 1896, schools of any description in the Colony, 5,535 scholars received a Chinese education free of charge, 1,639 scholars received a European education free of charge,, and 2,512 scholars paid fees for a European education. In other words, as many as 74 per cent. of all the scholars (9,686) under instruction in local Schools, in the year 1896, received their education free of charge.

6. ATTENDANCE IN SCHOOLS UNDER THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT.-At the beginning of the year 1896, when the Schools were reopened after the Chinese new-year holidays, they commenced