Schools opt for English teaching
ABOUT 40 per cent of secondary schools will turn into all-English medium schools in September, initial findings of a survey conducted by the Education Department revealed.
And only some 10 per cent of the schools will use Chinese as their teaching medium. The rest will adopt both Chinese and English, depending on classes and subjects.
The Education Department sent questionnaires to over 400 secondary schools to see what language they would be using for the 1993-94 school year under the so-called language streaming policy.
Four choices were given: all students be taught in English, all students be taught in Chinese, some classes be conducted in English, and some subjects be taught in English.
Analysis of some 300 schools which returned the questionnaires showed that most of them would opt for all-English teaching.
Some would use both Chinese and English, depending on the class and subject.
Senior education officer (Secondary School Place Allocation) Lam Kam-fung said the department was still waiting for response from schools which had not returned their questionnaires.
''We understand the decision is important and many schools have to discuss it with their supervisors and school board members.
''Once we receive all the information, we will analyse it and we hope the final results will be out later this week,'' she said.
Miss Lam expected the results to be similar to the initial findings.
The small number of schools turning to Chinese as a teaching medium fuelled educationalists' worry that students would be forced to study in an English-medium school even if they were poor in the language.
Primary pupils will be streamed under a Revised Method of Medium of Instruction Grouping Assessment to see which school they will attend in September.
The Association of Hong Kong Chinese Middle Schools believes all junior secondary students should be taught in Chinese.
It suggested that schools which want to adopt English as a teaching medium have their teachers tested and approved by the Government.
''Chinese is the best teaching medium for students whose mother tongue is Chinese, no matter what their language standard is like. Teaching students with poor language standard in English would only be a disaster,'' the association said.
The association hopes that the streaming would be conducted on the basis of school, not class or subject.
''We are worried that streaming by class and subject would create confusion in administration and management and generate gaps between students in English and Chinese classes.'' An earlier survey conducted by the Education Department showed only 30 per cent of students in Hong Kong did equally well with both English and Chinese as a teaching medium over the past five years.
