********************************************
Following is a question by the Hon Ronny Tong Ka-wah and a reply by the Secretary for Education, Mr Michael Suen, in the Legislative Council today (November 26):
Question:
It is reported that a total of four secondary schools in Shatin and Tai Po districts admitting mainly Band Three students ("Band Three secondary schools") will not be granted subsidy to provide senior secondary classes from the 2009 school year onwards because their numbers of senior secondary students do not meet the requirements for operating three secondary classes in that school year under the New Academic Structure for Senior Secondary Education. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the respective numbers of school-aged students, places and teachers for each senior secondary form in these two districts for the current and the two previous school years, and the relevant estimated numbers for each school year from the next one to 2016;
(b) of the roles and functions of Band One to Band Three secondary schools under the current education system; whether it has considered if a reduction of senior secondary classes provided by Band Three secondary schools will add to the burden of secondary schools of other bands; and
(c) whether it will consider implementing small class teaching in the Band Three secondary schools concerned, so as to enable them to continue to perform their intended functions, and to solve the problem of surplus teachers; if not, of the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
The four schools in Shatin and Tai Po as mentioned in the question operated less than 3 S1 classes in the 2006/07 school year. Hence, they could not meet the requirement of operating at least 3 classes per level under the New Senior Secondary (NSS) Academic Structure. There were a total of 11 schools which failed to operate 3 S1 classes per level in that year. The Education Bureau (EDB) provided a number of development options for them to choose and apply for. Among them, the four schools in Shatin and Tai Po were unsuccessful in their applications for development options. As a result, they will not be granted subsidies for operating senior secondary classes starting from the 2009/10 school year. Nonetheless, the EDB has been keeping in contact with the schools all along and will consider any practicable suggestions made by the schools on their future development, such as merging with other schools, to meet the requirement of a broad and balanced curriculum under the NSS Academic Structure.
Under-enrolment of secondary schools is a consequence of the decline in school-aged population for secondary education rather than a result of government policy. We have been trying our best to create room for schools' continued development on the premises of ensuring an effective use of resources, facilitating schools' stable development and taking care of the learning interest of students. In fact, taking heed of this situation, we announced in April this year that an additional recurrent expenditure of $1.4 billion will be spent on a series of relief measures. The related measures include reducing the number of students allocated to each S1 class by 2 in each year up to 34 students per class, and lowering the threshold of operating an S1 class to 30 students per class starting from the next school year.
Regarding the three parts of the questions, my responses are as follows:
(a) According to the information submitted by schools, details of the numbers of students and school places for senior secondary levels in Shatin and Tai Po districts for the current and the two previous school years are set out in the Appendix. Given that the planning of secondary school places is on a territory-wide basis, and the number of places for each secondary school by district will be affected by various factors such as allocation results, change of individual schools' development plans, mobility of population, parental choices, etc, we are unable to estimate the numbers of students and places for each senior secondary level in the two districts.
As secondary school teachers generally teach both junior and senior secondary levels, we do not have the estimated number of teachers solely teaching senior secondary classes for those two districts.
(b) Under the Secondary School Places Allocation (SSPA) system, places are allocated according to students' allocation bands, computer-generated random numbers and parental choices. With reference to previous allocation results, most secondary schools admit students of more than one allocation band, though with different proportions. In fact, for more than 130 schools in Hong Kong, over 50% of their junior secondary students admitted are from Band Three. In other words, a considerable number of schools and teachers have experience in catering for the learning diversity of students and this is also part of the professional tasks of teachers.
(c) As I have mentioned earlier, we will lower the basis for approving S1 classes to 30 students per class starting from the next school year. In other words, if a school has enrolled 61 S1 students, it will be approved to operate 3 S1 classes with about 21 students per class. In view of the above, for those under-enrolled schools, the number of students per class is far below 30 students and can even be as low as 21. Most of this type of schools usually admits Band Three students. We believe that this relief measure is target-oriented and can greatly alleviate the pressure of student enrolment of secondary schools arising from the decline in school-aged population for secondary education.
The main purpose of implementing small class teaching (SCT) is to enhance the quality of education. SCT policy should not be used to tackle the under-enrolment of schools or to resolve the problem of surplus teachers. Furthermore, the teaching environment, curriculum support and staffing establishment in secondary schools are different from those in primary schools. Given that secondary schools have always had additional teachers for split-class teaching in specified subjects, the number of students in certain subject groupings is comparable to that for small class. As a matter of fact, the teacher-to-student ratio of secondary schools has gradually improved from 1:20 in the 1997/98 school year to 1:17 in the 2007/08 school year.
We agree that additional support is needed for those schools which admit mainly Band Three students in order to take care of students' learning needs. In fact, we have been providing additional teachers to schools admitting Band Three students. In the 2008/09 school year, over 750 additional graduate teachers have been provided to schools, involving an annual recurrent expenditure of about $300 million. With this measure, schools can flexibly deploy the additional teachers according to school-based needs to facilitate the implementation of whole-school approach to catering for the academically low achievers and to arrange for grouping teaching or small class teaching for the core subjects. In addition, starting from this school year, secondary schools in need have also been provided with Learning Support Grant for recruiting more manpower and purchasing services to better cater for students with special education needs.
Ends/Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Issued at HKT 15:34
NNNN
