ENG-1984 — Page 160

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EDUCATION

At present, there are 13 prevocational schools providing 10 039 places. A further 11 schools of this type have been included in the School Building Programme for completion in the next two or three years.

The Junior Secondary Education Assessment (JSEA) System, which selects and allocates Form 3 leavers to Form 4 places in the public sector, completed its fourth cycle in July. A total of 421 schools, comprising 54 Chinese middle schools, 323 Anglo-Chinese grammar schools, 22 technical schools, 12 prevocational schools, and 10 special schools, participated in the system. Of the 75 580 pupils presented for the assessment, 2 150 discontinued schooling before completing Form 3 or opted out from allocation. Another 1 703 were admitted into full-time post-Form 3 courses at the five technical institutes. Of the remaining pupils, 72 per cent (51 660) were allocated Form 4 places in government and aided schools. Of these, 82 per cent (42 332) were allocated back to their own schools.

The Careers Education Section of the Education Department continued to work closely with the Hong Kong Association of Careers Masters and the Labour Department to provide a comprehensive service to young people. The Careers Education Centre in the Education Department headquarters is now making use of a computer to meet the wide and varied needs of students.

Special Education

The provision of special education continued to develop in line with the objectives of the White Paper on Rehabilitation published in October 1977 and the subsequent review of the programme plan. A total of 22 184 special places for handicapped children were provided in 1984. There were 69 special schools three for the blind, four for the deaf, 19 for the physically handicapped, eight for the maladjusted and socially deprived, and one for children with learning difficulties. The boarding sections of 14 special schools subvented by the Education Department also provided a total of 725 residential places.

In addition, there were 97 special education classes in 45 ordinary government schools – 59 for children with learning difficulties, eight for the partially sighted and 30 for the partially hearing. There were also 396 special education classes for children with learning difficulties in 294 ordinary aided schools. These special education classes, and a school for children with learning difficulties, were for the less severely handicapped and included both primary and junior secondary levels. In addition, 2010 less severely handicapped children were integrated into ordinary classes in government and aided schools.

Intensive remedial services were also provided by the Special Education Section of the Education Department for children with learning difficulties and maladjusted children integrated into ordinary schools. These services included remedial support outside school hours in resource teaching centres and adjustment units, a peripatetic teaching service in ordinary schools during school hours, and advisory services to schools.

Preventive and follow-up measures in the form of screening, assessment and remedial services identify special educational needs among school-age children and enable remedial action to be taken as early as possible. The remedial services include speech and auditory training, speech therapy, teacher and parent counselling, adjustment groups and resource teaching. During the year, 317 395 cases were handled: 292 500 under the combined screening programme (including speech, hearing and vision screening) and the group testing programme for Primary 2 pupils of all primary schools in Hong Kong; and 24 895 cases were given further help in the form of remedial services after audiological, speech or psychological assessments.