When will the Education and Manpower Bureau stop its foot-dragging and implement smaller class sizes in our schools? For several years, the primary school intake has dropped as modern Hong Kong couples are reluctant to have children. The result is closing schools and redundant teachers, with a serious loss of morale in the education sector. Why not take the positive step of reducing class sizes and distributing the student population and teacher allotments rather than the negative step of maintaining a failing system? The government has saved large amounts by educating fewer primary students, but these savings have not been reinvested in the morale and performance of our teachers and students. Modern children need much more individual attention and personal guidance than their parents received in the rote-memory, 'chalk and talk' classrooms of the past. Language instruction, especially, requires more one-on-one contact than other subjects. In secondary schools, classes often exceed 40 students. Just imagine the time needed to correct 40 English essays. A single 40-minute lesson in composition can require five or six hours of eye-straining correction. No wonder our writing standards have been falling, not to mention speaking and listening. The EMB, like all our bureaus, wants to save money for a government that refuses to suitably tax the beneficiaries of our educational system, the big businesses that hire the cream of the crop. Even worse, the EMB has wasted human resources by making so many teachers redundant and destroying the morale of the profession. We've heard too much talk about 'quality of education' and 'improving our standards'. When will the EMB, as the colloquial slogan says, put its money where its mouth is? It is high time to reduce class sizes to internationally accepted levels. Our students, teachers ad parents deserve more than they are being given under Professor Arthur Li's administration. J. GARNER, Kowloon
