Sessional_Paper_1910 — Page 29

HONGKONG.

REPORT OF THE EDUCATION COMMITTEE.

3

No. 1910

Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government, May 5th, 1910.

The Committee, consisting of the undersigned, were appointed by His Excellency the Governor to consider and report upon the questions embodied in the terms of reference, Ap- pendix A. A further question having reference to the nomenclature which should be adopted to describe the various classes of schools, and their internal divisions, was subsequently refer- red to us. In our report we have adopted the nomenclature which we recommend, and which is given in Appendix B.

The Committee met seven times, and between our meetings correspondence was circu- lated. No evidence was taken orally; but where necessary, questions were referred to educa- tionists whose opinions it was thought desirable to obtain.

Holding the opinion that most of the questions referred to us depend for their answers upon financial considerations, we first turned our attention to the Staffing of schools; since the provision of the Staff is the principal item of school expenditure. This question involved the preliminary consideration of the nature of the Chinese Staff. Next was considered the financial result which might be expected to follow from an insistence upon the Staffs this found to be necessary. Here distinct enquiries had to be made to distinguish between the cases of Government and Grant Schools. In the case of Government Schools, the loss caused by the proposed increase of Staff was more than counter-balanced by an expected increase of fees; so that, without overstepping the limits set by the preface to the terms of reference, it was possible to recommend an extension of the existing number of Lower Grade English Schools. In the case of the Grant Schools, there was no such surplus available. On the other hand, the existing Staffs fulfilled already, or nearly fulfilled, our requirements in most cases, and we were of opinion that our proposals would cause no considerable loss to the schools concerned. When therefore we proceeded to our next task, and considered what readjust- ments were advisable in the method of assessing the Grant in order to secure greater efficiency, we felt that the average rate per unit need not in equity be increased.

The general effect of the recommendations outlined above will be, we hope, a consider- ably increased standard of efficiency in Government Schools, with no loss of the numbers at- tending them, which increase will be paid for by the recent increase of school fees; while in Grant Schools what increase in efficiency is needed to bring them up to the desiderated stand- ard will be provided without putting an undue strain upon their resources.

We arrived at the important opinion that in view of the costliness of an English Staff it should be the policy of the Government to take measures for the adequate training of Chinese

masters.

We desire further to point out that our recommendation of a higher Grant for the Re- move and Upper Classes involves a detailed examination of the pupils in the Remove. This and the necessary supervision of the proposed Lower Grade Schools will throw a large increase of work upon the Education Department.

The other questions considered and answered by the Committee are sufficiently explained by the follwing Recommendations.

Unless otherwise stated, our references are to English Schools only.