Potential being wasted

WITH thousands of Mainlanders arriving here each year on one-way permits, society must make adjustments to absorb them. In education, the need to adjust is urgent.

Children arriving from China are too often derided for their poor Cantonese and English, instead of being given the credit for the high standards they have attained in other subjects. But schools cannot be expected to absorb them without preparation, unless they are allowed to set up their own intensive language training units and given the resources to do so. They must be encouraged to offer places as soon as the basic linguistic skills are acquired. They should also be penalised for failing to take on mainland children without adequate excuse.

For this to work, however, the Education Department would have to put both greatly increased resources and extra thought and sensitivity into its preparatory courses. It is absurd and wasteful, for instance, to put 6-and 15-year-olds together. Older children will learn little and will run the risk of disaffection. Younger children will learn nothing good from bored, angry older classmates.

The Hong Kong Association for Continuing Education has done the department a favour in pointing out the inadequacy of the present system. The territory cannot afford to waste human resources by skimping on educational resources.

These children from China will be regarded as local people from now on. New guidelines and funds are required to ensure they are not carelessly dumped on the scrap-heap. As the economy changes, Hong Kong needs a highly skilled, multi-lingual workforce, not cheap, uneducated labour which will be a burden on the social services.

Mainland immigrants deserve just as thorough an education as local children; and as Hong Kong integrates more closely with China, their native dialect should be regarded as an important, additional skill, not a hindrance.