ENG-1982 — Page 105

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EDUCATION

teachers of Chinese and English in specialist language teaching skills, and at the same time provided additional teachers in secondary schools for more effective language teaching. The government also began research into the language of instruction in schools, set up curriculum development teams of secondary school teachers and made provision for the installation in primary and secondary schools of a wire-free induction loop system to support language lessons.

To promote and facilitate the use of Chinese for communication, study, work and leisure, a working party was set up to study the feasibility of establishing an independent Chinese Language Foundation. The working party's report is being considered by the government.

The Junior Secondary Education Assessment (JSEA) System is designed to select and allocate Form 3 leavers to Form 4 places in the public sector. A total of 433 schools were registered for the 1981-2 JSEA, including 64 Chinese middle schools, 362 Anglo-Chinese schools and seven special schools. The total number of pupils involved in the assessment was 82 757. Of these, 2 217 discontinued schooling before the second internal assessment or failed to submit their choice of school, while 1 053 were admitted into full-time craft courses at Hong Kong's five technical institutes. Over 65 per cent (52 091) of the remaining pupils were allocated Form 4 places in government and aided schools, with nearly 80 per cent of these (41 511) allocated back to their own schools.

In February, the government approved for schools in the public sector the provision of additional graduate and non-graduate teachers in secondary schools, and increased the teacher-to-class ratio from 1.1:1 to 1.2:1 in primary schools. The additional staff in secondary schools will improve the standards in Chinese and English through more remedial language teaching; strengthen the staffing resources for remedial teaching in other subjects; provide guidance and career counselling for pupils; and extend extra-curricular activities and community involvement. Similarly, additional staff in primary schools will enable schools to implement various measures for the improvement of primary education - including the establishment of class libraries, improvements to audio-visual aid services, the release of staff to attend refresher courses, and more remedial teaching.

Kindergartens

In September, there were 709 kindergartens in Hong Kong providing pre-school education for about 205 200 children in the three-to-five age group. These private institutions are supervised by officers of the Education Department, whose professional advice is freely available to school managers, teachers, parents and members of the public. In-service training for teachers is provided through seminars, exhibitions and training courses, including a two-year part-time course conducted at the Grantham College of Education and a 12-week part-time course run twice yearly by the Advisory Inspectorate of the Education Department. Other government assistance to kindergartens includes the re- imbursement of rents and rates to non-profit-making kindergartens and the allocation of premises in public housing estates to suitable sponsoring bodies for the operation of kindergartens.

Primary Education

Primary education has been free in all government schools and in nearly all aided schools since September, 1971. In the few aided primary schools where fees are charged, they may be remitted up to 20 per cent of the total enrolment to meet cases of genuine hardship. To help needy parents further, an annual textbook and stationery grant of $135 per pupil

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