At St Joseph Primary School in Wan Chai, classes are overflowing with students. In a district where the number of school places far exceeds the number of school-age children, the school's eight Primary One classes admitted 311 students last year, or more than 38 each, compared with the standard class size of 35.
Had the school adopted the so-called activity teaching approach promoted by the education authorities, it could have reduced class sizes to 30. Yet the school is so popular that parents, including many from outside Wan Chai, are falling over one another to send their children there.
A similar anomaly occurs at Yaumati Catholic Primary School (Hoi Wang Road). In the past school year, each of its Primary One classes had between 39 and 40 students.
Figures for this year are not yet available, but the school is understood to have also over-enrolled, with other schools nearby complaining that some of their students had gone over after the term had begun.
This is happening in the district where the Fresh Fish Traders' School had to mount a rowdy protest and pass a quality inspection before it was allowed to continue operating Primary One classes this term, because it failed to recruit the required-minimum number of students.
Presumably, if Yaumati Catholic Primary School and other popular schools in the district were obliged to stick to the standard class size, under-enrolment at the Fresh Fish Traders' School and others facing closure would have been less serious.