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Principal hits out at judge after bid to save school is rejected

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He attacks reasoning behind the decision and says court failed to consider the needs of parents

The High Court was criticised yesterday for not taking parents' needs into consideration after it turned down a request to rescue a Sheung Shui primary school from closure.

In her judgment yesterday, Madam Justice Carlye Chu Fun-ling said: 'I accept that the present case does not involve questions of fundamental human rights in the sense that the applicant's daughter is not being denied free and proper primary education.'

The case was brought by parent Lam Yuet-mei, who said her daughter would face great inconvenience in having to travel to a distant school if Kin Tak Public School in Chiu Keng village, Sheung Shui, had to close.

Kin Tak was one of 31 schools barred from operating classes because it failed to find the minimum 23 pupils for Primary One.

School principal Fong Hong-kwong, who launched an 80-hour hunger strike in January to protest against the Education and Manpower Bureau's decision, said he was gravely disappointed that the court ruled against the bureau's need to reconsider.

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