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Following is a question by the Hon Chan Wai-yip and a written reply by the Secretary for Education, Mr Michael Suen, in the Legislative Council today (July 11):
Question:
Recently, quite a number of members of the public have complained to me that the morning assembly broadcast in many schools has caused serious noise nuisance to residents nearby. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of such complaints received in each of the past three years, the noise levels involved in such cases, the names and locations of the schools concerned, and the number of cases in which the nuisance caused by excessively loud broadcast had been ameliorated; and
(b) whether it will adopt measures to reduce the noise nuisance caused by broadcast from schools to residents nearby; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) According to the records of the Education Bureau, there were five, 14 and 13 complaint cases about noise nuisance to residents nearby caused by the broadcast in schools in the 2004/05, 2005/06 and 2006/07 school years respectively. To handle these cases, we would request the Environmental Protection Department to measure the noise level of the school broadcast, if necessary. Among the above-mentioned cases, six have undergone the measurement of noise level and all of them were found to be within the acceptable sound level. The number and location of those schools involved are set out in the Appendix. We do not consider it appropriate to provide the name of individual schools.
After the follow-up actions, the situations of all the above-mentioned cases have been ameliorated. The schools involved have done their best to adopt improvement measures, including reducing the volume of the public address (PA) systems, adjusting the direction of the speakers, turning off those speakers near residential blocks, etc. to mitigate the effect of noise on residents.
(b) To further minimize noise nuisance that schools' PA systems might cause to residents nearby, we provide schools under the Year 2000 School Design with conduits to connect their classrooms with their PA systems so that students can stay in the classrooms to listen to the announcements. In addition, we have installed low-volume speakers at different locations of these schools to replace the high-volume speakers and replaced the traditional ringing bells with musical bells.
Other aided and government schools with earlier designs may also apply for funding from the Education Bureau to install the facilities mentioned above so as to reduce the overall noise level, if necessary.
Ends/Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Issued at HKT 16:19
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