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Following is a question by the Hon Cheung Man-kwong and a reply by the Secretary for Education, Mr Michael Suen, in the Legislative Council today (January 27):
Question:
It has been reported that according to the Education Bureau, the intake of Secondary 1 students in the coming school year will substantially decrease by 6,300, and will decrease further from this year's 63,000 to 42,000 within the next five years. It has also been reported that according to the estimation of some members of the school sector, around 50 to 60 secondary schools may cease operation in the new school year. The Secretary for Education recently visited associations of school heads in various districts to consult the principals on measures to mitigate the impact of declining population on secondary schools. Given that it has been pointed out by some members of the school sector that with the commencement of implementation of the new senior secondary ("NSS") academic structure in this school year, schools are keenly waiting for the authorities to formulate measures to stabilise the development of schools, so that both the principals and teachers can concentrate their efforts on implementing the NSS academic structure and dealing with other onerous reform-related matters, including the addition of the Liberal Studies subject, Other Learning Experiences and Student Learning Profile, integration of certain subjects, gradual increase in the number of subjects with school-based assessment ("SBA") and increasing weightings of SBA components in the concerned subjects, next cycle of external school reviews, and arrangements related to fine-tuning of the medium of instruction for schools, will the Government set out the views collected in the consultation exercise and inform this Council of the new measures which the authorities will implement to stabilise the development of schools, in order to help schools implement various reform measures under the NSS academic structure smoothly, and whether the new measures will include suspending the policy under which under-enrolled schools have to be closed?
Reply:
President,
The Government has put in substantial resources in the last decade to implement initiatives to enhance the quality of education. For secondary schools, new initiatives include enhancement of English learning, provision of 12-year free education and the implementation of the New Senior Secondary academic structure (NSS) etc. To assist schools in implementing NSS, we have provided $1,900 million additional resources since the 2005/06 school year. In fact, after several years of preparation, the school sector is generally ready to take forward the NSS academic structure which commenced in September last year.
We have been closely monitoring the issue of student population decline and have already introduced various relief measures to facilitate the development of secondary schools and stabilise the teaching force. The situation we are now facing is: with the dwindling Secondary One (S1) student population, more schools are being affected. Some schools will inevitably have to reduce their number of S1 classes not as a result of the education policy but as a result of the decline in student population. According to past experience, individual school's enrolment situation is affected by a number of factors, including parental choice, uneven distribution of student population in different districts as well as the characteristics of individual district etc. In projecting the number of affected secondary schools, the above-mentioned factors have to be taken into consideration. According to our projection, the number of secondary schools affected by the student decline in the coming years will not be as large as that predicted by the school sector.
Nevertheless, we understand that the decline in student population brings about uncertainties to the sustainable development of schools. The school sector has also expressed their concern on various occasions, and suggested that the Government should implement further relief measures to maintain a stable environment so as to enable schools and teachers to feel assured and to concentrate on the implementation of NSS.
We are now gathering the views of different stakeholders in the sector. According to the views collected through meetings with the school sector so far, the majority hopes that the Government would encourage larger schools to downsize to 24 classes progressively. This will enable schools to have more capacity for innovative ideas to enhance teaching and learning in order to cope with the development of NSS. Another major suggestion is to allow quality schools or schools with effective featured programmes to sustain their development. There are also suggestions that the Government should further reduce the class size of secondary schools or even implement small class teaching in secondary schools. We have also started collecting views from parent representatives of different districts.
With due reference to the views collected from the sector and after careful consideration, we wish to explore the feasibility of implementing relief measures along the following directions, including (1) encouraging sponsoring bodies to review schools under their sponsorship and consider reducing the number of schools in an orderly manner through merger or other means; (2) facilitating schools that are willing to reduce the number of classes voluntarily to implement the new class structure in an orderly manner; (3) facilitating schools to collaborate with other schools or post-secondary institutions/professional bodies/vocational bodies in operating special featured programmes; and (4) allowing quality schools and schools operating effective featured programmes to sustain their development etc. We will continue to exchange views with principals in various districts and will also meet other stakeholders, including sponsoring bodies and parent representatives, with a view to working out measures which are both practicable and acceptable to various stakeholders as soon as possible.
Ends/Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Issued at HKT 14:36
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