Some are launching fund-raising drives to build new teaching blocks, others are partitioning covered playgrounds into study areas or converting changing rooms into classrooms. Schools are scrambling to create extra space by September to accommodate a sharp swell in the student body for the coming academic year, when youngsters under old and new academic systems will study alongside each other.
'It will be a nightmare,' says Jonathan Lai Ping-wah, principal of Lee Kau Yan Memorial School in Wong Tai Sin.
The space crunch stems from the transition to the 3-3-4 educational system introduced in 2009. In the past, about half of its students would leave after Form Five due to poor results in public exams while the rest would stay for another two years to take A-Level exams that might provide admission to a three-year degree programme. Under the new set-up, all Form Five students this year will progress to Form Six before sitting for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education and deciding whether to go on to a local university. That means secondary schools will be dealing with many more Form Six students than before. Moreover, the new curriculum offers a wide range of electives and dozens of subject combinations that will require additional classrooms. Yet, schools still have to house the last batch of teenagers sitting for A-levels.
So, even as school prepare to break for the summer, principals such as Lai are busy trying to transform available space into classrooms.
'A locker room in the auditorium is being converted into a classroom,' says Lai. 'As there are no windows in the room, we have to install air conditioning. The student activity room will be partitioned off into two classrooms.
'It's not an ideal learning environment, but there are no other ways to deal with the crisis.'