The Sunday Morning Post on October 17 dealt with two issues in secondary school education, in the article on the Native-speaking English Teacher (NET) scheme (Postmagazine) and the very disturbing feature on secondary school discipline in Hong Kong (Agenda). Even in Australia 20 years ago, secondary school discipline was not as dire as that which you described. This brings me to my point, that popular education in Hong Kong is antiquated and Victorian. It does not reflect the sweeping changes which have moved through the UK, the US, Australia and New Zealand since the Victorian period. How then can Tung Chee-hwa aim to raise Hong Kong to the level of a leading city like London or New York? Perhaps he should take a closer look at popular education systems in those countries. The end result of the schooling that you examined in your articles is a workforce prone to be submissive learners, non-lateral thinkers, rote assimilators and poor decision-makers - inappropriate skills to bring to the workplace of a trade, service and tourist centre like Hong Kong. If you take a closer look at popular education here, you will find that early learning education is where these problems are founded. The majority of pre-schools in Hong Kong advocate rote learning, little play and a preoccupation with learning to read (by reciting the alphabet) and write (often with worksheets). Research shows that these antiquated methods do not develop the concepts young children need and children best develop pre-reading skills by developing fine motor skills through play, games, art and clay. In fact, the most important part of early literacy is learning to love books (by reading to children). Play is essential to personal, physical, intellectual, linguistic and psychosocial development and denying children their full rights to play may impoverish their development. Play also lays the foundation for problem solving, lateral thinking and teamwork. The Government needs to take a closer look at pre-school teacher training. The Department of Education is currently running its third teacher training course in English - how then can Mr Tung strive to make Hong Kong 'tri-lingual' and 'bi-literal'? Even so, the training itself is seen by experts as not in line with courses overseas, or the philosophy of early learning education already described. Consequently, the Kowloon Baptist Kindergarten and the Pre-School Playgroup Association have introduced to Hong Kong an internationally-recognised pre-school teacher training programme from Manchester City College, but the Education Department is not willing to recognise such a programme. Finally, since pre-schools in Hong Kong are essentially controlled by the private sector, they are quite expensive. The Government should introduce means-testing and subsidies to prevent a scenario where children of families of limited means are raised by their grandparents in restricted learning environments. JENNIFER KENDE Chairman Hong Kong Pre-School Playgroup Association
