Educators urge a change in policy to tackle declining pupil numbers, at least until 2017
SHIRLEY ZHAOshirley.zhao@scmp.com
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 07 October, 2015, 3:04am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 07 October, 2015, 5:37am
Students and their teacher at San Wui Commercial Society Secondary School. Photos: Franke Tsang
Forty-two-year-old Shi Hui Wen Secondary School in Tuen Mun has just two classes with about 30 pupils. Amid a sharp decrease in the number of students entering secondary schools across the city, the school is set to close in 2017.
Shi Hui Wen is among at least three government-funded secondary schools that have closed or will shut since they stopped admitting Form 1 pupils in 2012 as enrolment slumped.
At least 15 other publicly funded secondary schools are facing the danger of closing as they had only one or two Form 1 classes last year.
Educators have been calling for a small-size class policy to prevent schools from axing classes and resources, but the government says it has no plans to adopt their recommendation.
"A small-class policy can help many schools and save many teachers," says Shi Hui Wen principal Choi Wing-tim.
The number of children entering secondary schools has dropped 12 per cent from 64,758 in 2012 to 57,151 last year. Officials project that the number will fall further to around 54,000 next year before it gradually picks up again in 2017.
Beside schools closing, many classes have been axed and teachers made redundant.
On the other hand, primary schools have seen a continuous increase in the number of new pupils due to a rebound in the local birth rate and an influx of cross-border children.
The number of cross-border Primary 1 pupils increased by 70 per cent to 3,700 last year from 2012.
The increase is not expected to stop until 2018, when the last batch of children born in Hong Kong to mainland parents before the 2013 government ban on mainland women giving birth here, will enter primary school.
The number of locally-based Primary 1 pupils is projected to increase by almost 32 per cent to peak at 67,500 in 2018 from 2012.
This means secondary schools are expected to see a continuous surge in pupil numbers from 2017 until 2024, which suggests that closed schools may need to reopen and redundant teachers may have to be hired again to cope with the surge.
"What I'm afraid of is a loss of experienced teachers," says Wong Tong-pak, principal of San Wui Commercial Society Secondary School in Tuen Mun, one of the 15 schools that had just two Form 1 classes last year.
Wong says many of the now redundant teachers are those with experience in teaching children with different abilities and needs.
He fears if they left the service, they would not come back when demand increases again.
Kelvin Lo and Kitty Kwok are receiving small-class education at their school in Tuen Mun.
Another problem with the decreasing population is that many so-called Band 2 and Band 3 pupils can now enter more prestigious Band 1 schools with less competition. This means that less popular Band 3 schools are facing not only a decreasing population but also a loss of students who should have been allocated to these schools, Wong says. He adds this would not be good for the pupils either because they are entering schools that do not fit their abilities.
Many secondary school principals and politicians agree that a small-class policy, where the government reduces the standard class size from around 30 pupils per class to 20 to 25, can allow the student population to be distributed based on their abilities more evenly across schools. Less popular schools can also maintain their number of classes and teachers under such a policy.
They also believe with fewer pupils in the classroom, teachers can better tend to students' individual studying needs.
"This is the best time to introduce a small-class policy," says Fung Wai-wah, president of the Professional Teachers' Union. "When there are many students, you need extra resources to achieve small-class teaching. But now the population is decreasing, you can achieve this with the same amount of resources."
Indeed, the benefits are behind a global trend towards small-class teaching among developed economies, education sector lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen says.
Even countries or regions in Asia, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Macau, have reduced class size in the past decade. The mainland also raised the prospect of small-class teaching in 2010 in parts of its national education strategy.
Education sector lawmaker Ip Kin-yuen says smaller classes is the way forward for schools. Photo: May Tse
"Hong Kong is falling behind among the developed economies," says Ip, who also chairs the Hong Kong Society of Small-Class Teaching.
Small-class teaching has been shown to enhance pupils' academic results and social skills in classrooms, he says.
"When there are fewer people, students have a bigger chance to ask questions. Language education, especially training in oral communication, would be improved."
He adds that pupils' sense of belonging and relationships with other classmates would be improved.
While smaller classes would add pressure on resources as more teachers and classrooms would be needed, Ip points out that education expenditure in Hong Kong has not increased much despite the operation of small-class teaching in primary schools since 2009.
"Population growth might not be as great as described by the government … while the decline might persist for a while. It is time to adopt a better teaching style," says Ip.
But a spokesman for the Education Bureau says the bureau does not have such plans. He says the government has introduced relief measures for schools facing declining enrolment before the projected rebound in the student population.
The bureau in 2013 introduced a relief measure that allowed teachers to remain on the payroll for up to three years even if classes were scrapped.
It also allowed schools to run two Form 1 classes if they managed to admit at least 26 pupils, while those schools with enough pupils for only one Form 1 class could still survive by working out a sustainable development plan with the bureau.
Some believe this is a de facto small-class policy because class size can be as low as 13.
But Fung argues that if this policy is not applied to all schools, popular ones will continue to have over 30 pupils to a class, while less popular ones will keep seeing a decline. With ever fewer pupils and classes, parents' confidence and staff morale in these schools will drop, he fears.
"The schools can do nothing but wait for their end time," he said.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1864768/small-classes-big-ambition-how-policies-can
