A SCHOOL principal has warned that the setting up of special skills opportunity schools will not achieve much because students face grim study and job prospects after they graduate.
Mr Leonard K. K. Sit, principal of CCC Nim Tsi School, where the territory's pilot skills opportunity school was introduced, said his students had great difficulty seeking employment or furthering their studies.
But the Government will be going ahead with plans to build seven such schools from 1995 to 1999 for the 2,400 students with severe learning problems, which account for the bottom 0.9 per cent of the 12 to 14 age group.
The intention of these schools, according to the Education Commission Report No 4, is to enable students to continue training at the operative level in skills centres run by the Technical Education and Industrial Training Department, and to look after themselves upon graduation.
The decision to build the seven schools was made following the completion of a pilot scheme which started in 1989 in CCC Nim Tsi School. The school offers self-help, social skills and complementary skills-related studies in addition to the regular schoolcurriculum.
''Although we have successfully kept these students in school for three more years after primary education with remarkably low dropout and high attendance rates, I don't think this kind of school can really equip students with skills to find a proper job,'' Mr Sit said.
According to 1992 figures, among the 94 graduates of the school, only two students were admitted to the Technical Institute (TI), 68 landed jobs but only half of them found stable employment such as apprenticeship. About 25 per cent of the graduates wereunemployed.