A secretary training institute is doing its bit to prevent the standard of English in Hong Kong from dropping further.
The school knows well what the standard is like, having had to deny places on its courses to hundreds of students who failed to show a decent knowledge of English.
'In the past five years we've been taking in fewer and fewer students - because applicants do not meet the school's requirements in English proficiency,' says Sara Beattie, who runs her own business school.
Mrs Beattie says the number of applicants who finish secondary school with their HKCEE but lack satisfactory English reading and writing skills is growing steadily.
'We cannot accept them, although we could well have made money by taking in more students.' The school was originally set up by an American woman about 30 years ago and became the Sara Beattie College when Mrs Beattie took over in 1974. The Wan Chai school offers its own one-year diploma in Executive Secretarial Studies.
The school's curriculum emphasises practical skills, including shorthand, typewriting, office management, filing and record-keeping, and basic business and communication skills.
Over the past two years around 200 young people have graduated with diplomas from the part-time training programme.