SEMPLE Memorial Secondary School is facing a dilemma: whether to conduct more lessons in Chinese or in English.
The Tuen Mun school now has 24 Forms 1 to 3 classes in Chinese aimed at raising students' learning interest and ease the pressure on them.
But eight Forms 4 and 5 classes are using English as a medium of instruction.
Principal Tsang Hin-ming said: ''Students have shown great improvement academically; they are more attentive during lessons because they can understand instructions easily in Chinese.'' However, despite the good response, Mr Tsang said whether more lessons would be conducted in Chinese was still uncertain as it depended on government policy and parents' preference.
''We all know that using mother-tongue as a teaching medium is better, but society still stresses the importance of English more than Chinese. I'm afraid we will face a lot of pressure and criticism from parents if we changed the medium.
''Besides, a lack of good Chinese textbooks in the market is also posing a problem. Teachers will have to prepare notes, make lots of translations and produce other teaching materials themselves,'' he said.
Mr Tsang said students were becoming actively involved in extra-curricular activities as they found the homework easy to handle in Chinese.