Sessional_Paper_1899 — Page 412

HONGKONG.

409

No. 24

No. 26.

REPORT OF THE INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS FOR 1898.

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

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT,

Hongkong, 15th March, 1899. SIR, I have the honour to submit the following report on the schools under my supervision during the year 1898.

2. GENERAL EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS.-With, I believe, only two exceptions, all the schools in which European children receive a regular education are supported by the Government, and of the two, one has applied for a Grant-in-Aid. The case is very different with Chinese schools. Although the great majority of Chinese children attend Government schools or schools receiving a Grant-in-Aid, there are still nearly 2,500 children attending what in previous reports have been called Kai-fong Schools. I described these in last year's report as public schools maintained by the Tung Wa Hospital and members of the Chinese community, and, in doing so, I copied a mistake made by my predecessor who, as I gather from his reports for the years 1893 and 1896, believed these schools to be free pub- lic schools maintained by the Tung Wa Ilospital or by public-spirited Chinese. The truth is that of the Kai-fong Schools only six are free public schools. These are inaintained by the Tung Wa Hos- pital and have an attendance of a little under 200 children. The remaining 102 schools are schools started by individual teachers for their own profit, or semi-private schools where a tutor engaged by some gentleman to teach his children is given permission to receive other pupils as well. In the year 1898, excluding those temporarily closed, there were 112 schools with an enrolment of 7,327 pupils, maintained by the Government or aided by it and subject to examination by the Inspector of Schools. I had hoped to be able to make a comparison between the years 1893 and 1898 as between two normal years, but the recurrence of the plague has once more put that out of the question. As far as enrolment is concerned, however, in the Government Schools there is an increase of 101 pupils, from 1,344 in 1893 to 1,445 in 1898. In the Grant-in-Aid Schools there is a decrease, there being 97 schools with an enrolment of 5,882 scholars in 1898, compared with 102 with an enrolment of 6,250 scholars in 1893; whilst the Kai-fong Schools" which in 1893 numbered 144 with an enrolment of 2,596 scholars now number 108 with an enrolment of 2,469.

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3. DECENNIAL STATISTICS OF SCHOOLS UNDER THE INSPECTORATE. -The total number of schools subject to supervision and to examination by the Inspector of Schools in 1898 was, as stated above, 112 with an enrolment of 7,327 pupils. The corresponding figures for the years 1888 and 1878 are respectively 94 and 5,624, and 46 and 2,544. In 1898, 2,933 pupils or 40 per cent were learning English; in 1888, 1,469 or 26 per cent; whilst in 1878 there were nominally 479 or 19 per cent. But of the 479 scholars who were studying English in 1878, 38 were attending a school at Aberdeen which was closed in the summer, and the remainder were attending the district schools at Wong-nei- chung, Wantsai and Saiyingpun, which only commenced the study of English in the course of the year. In 1878, the number of girls learning English was 42; in 1888, 369, and last year 885.

4. TRIENNIAL STATISTICS.--In 1896 the number of scholars in the above mentioned schools was 6,313; in 1897, 6,787; and in 1898, 7,327. Of these the number in each year learning English was 2,552, 2,523 and 2,933 respectively.

5. SCHOOL FEES.-Four out of the seven Grant-in-Aid Schools, which give an education in English exclusively to Chinese boys, charge fees varying from $30 a year to $6. One of the three free schools will charge a small fee in 1899, and there will thus remain (exclusive of the Governinent District Schools) only two free schools in which Chinese boys may learn English; and of these, one was only opened in 1898 and has not yet a large attendance.

6. SCHOOL ATTENDANCE. The average daily attendance in 1898 was 4,281. That of Grant-in- Aid Schools alone was 3,581. The attendance in them was seriously affected by the plague. In March the average daily attendance was 4,040, but in May it had dropped to 3,120, a decrease of 23 per cent, and did not recover until after the summer holidays, in September. The greatest decrease was in the eastern part of the town. In the lawan and Wantsai districts it was 41 per cent, whilst further east still, in Sokonpó and Bowrington, it was as much as 63 per cent. Outside Victoria the attendance was very little affected. The Government Schools which suffered most were the Chinese division of the Belilios Public School in which the average daily attendance in May was only 30 per cent of the attendance in March, and the Wantsai School.

7. Results of THE ANNUAL EXAMINATIONS.-The results of the annual examinations of the Grant-in-Aid Schools are shown in Tables X and XII, which give the number of passes and failures in each standard, and the percentages of passes in each of the ordinary subjects, and in Table XI which gives the percentage of scholars who passed in the last two years in each school.

8. BELILIOS PUBLIC SCHOOL-I have already reported on the result of the examination of the Belilios Public School which was held in July last. To ensure greater privacy the wall along Holly- wood Road and Shing Wong Street has been raised so that passers-by cannot see into the school