EDUCATION
85
buildings, the efficiency of schools and teachers, and the suitability of syllabuses.
The Director has publicly advocated widening the scope of civics teaching in schools so that young people would grow up with an awareness of Hong Kong's problems, of steps being taken to solve them, and of possible future remedies.
Earlier in the year transport workers' stoppages made it difficult for pupils, particularly those travelling to examination centres. Curtailment of transport services still presents them with a problem, but gradually, these difficulties are being surmounted.
The number of students in all areas of education continue to increase. Detailed figures are given in Appendix XXVI, but some idea of this expansion can be gained from the fact that enrolment at the end of September in primary schools was 689,561 and in secondary schools it was 235,387 compared with 657,585 and 222,890 respectively in 1966. Altogether 1,041,480 pupils were enrolled in all 2,438 schools, colleges and education centres, 57,985 more than last year's figure.
More and more students are becoming interested in non- academic activities and many competitive sports are included in the curriculum of all schools. In addition to active sports, annual folk dance festivals, and primary schools games and gymnastics are becoming popular. This summer a series of weekly youth recreation camps in the New Territories were attended by 2,000 schoolboys. 11
The trend in musical education, which has gained momentum in recent years, continues. The 19th annual Schools Musical Festival broke all records and an estimated 30,000 competitors took part in the 335 available classes. Distinguished adjudicators from the United Kingdom and South Africa applied international standards in their assessment of achievements in both music and speech, English and Chinese. The Hong Kong Youth Orchestra with more than 90 players, continued to give public concerts, and an instrumental music scheme in 13 schools, involving 390 pupils, is likely to expand.
Four visiting examiners conducted the practical examinations of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. Entries
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