Are mainstream schools doing enough for special needs children?

The numbers threaten to overwhelm. About 28,000 special needs students now attend mainstream schools, the result of an inclusive education policy introduced in 1997. The idea is to place children with learning disabilities in conventional classrooms, where they can develop alongside other youngsters. But academics and social workers working with such students find the broad range of needs in a school means many do not receive sufficient help so they struggle in class. And as the first special needs teens under this system prepare to leave school, the path ahead is murky.

Consider Willie Lam Chi-yung, who recalls secondary school as a blur of disappointments and put-downs. Many teachers found his presence disruptive - he would talk loudly and walk around the classroom at will - so they left him to his own devices. But Willie, 17, couldn't help himself: he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

"I played all the time at school and the teachers just ignored me," he says. Although diagnosed at age 13, Willie attended a government school in Kowloon where he rarely received the help that he needed. As he advanced to secondary classes, where there were more rules to be followed, his behavioural problems were exacerbated.

Peggy So Sin-lee, his school social worker, says Willie did not mean to make trouble. "He couldn't control his impulses. His parents thought he was just being naughty and boisterous, and did not seek medical help. We arranged for him to visit a private psychiatrist, who made the diagnosis.

"His case was later referred to government psychiatrists, but he only got to see them once every few months, and his condition did not improve at all."

Thousands of Hong Kong students have experiences similar to Willie's.

Dr Kenneth Sin Kuen-fung, an associate professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, says more than 80 per cent of the city's 1,000 mainstream schools now include special needs students.