PETTY arguments about declining English standards must stop to allow the real problems to be addressed, the vice-chancellor of Hongkong University said yesterday.
''We have to . . . get on with finding ways of improving English in Hongkong,'' Professor Wang Gungwu said.
''There are grounds for concern about the standards of English. It would be regrettable if we spent too much of our energy defining standards when we should recognise that we have a problem and get on with improving it.'' He acknowledged that more people in Hongkong could use some English but said fewer had the ability to communicate effectively.
''It is not helpful to say how much we have improved over the past few decades. The fact is that we are not improving fast enough for the needs of Hongkong and the needs of the international community that has descended upon our region,'' said Professor Wang, who was speaking at the launch of the Teachers of English Language Education Centre.
Set up by HKU's department of curriculum studies, aided by a $2.76 million grant from the Hongkong Telecom Foundation, it aims to give professional help in many different areas to secondary school English language teachers. The help will range from helping them understand the correct use of different tenses themselves to giving them ideas for lessons for their students.
Teachers in participating schools will have access to the system through their school computer. As well as being able to look at the wealth of data stored in the system, teachers will be able to ask questions which will be answered by staff at the university's curriculum studies department and get in touch which each other to share ideas.
The scheme envisages that 20 schools will be linked to the system in the first year, increasing to 50 and then 100 in subsequent years. The network has the potential to be connected to all Hongkong schools.
