Among the doomed group is one that fought back from the brink in 2004
Thirteen primary schools have been ordered to stop admitting Primary One pupils from September after failing to attract the minimum 23 children needed to operate a class.
Last year, nine primary schools were ordered to stop admitting new pupils.
Among the 13 is at least one school that fought its way back from the brink of closure in 2004 - the Fresh Fish Traders' School in Tai Kok Tsui, West Kowloon.
Education sector legislator Cheung Man-kwong said it was 'exceedingly regrettable' that the number of schools threatened with closure had increased, and said he was dissatisfied with the government's response to the population drop.
'If the government implemented small-class teaching, which Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen has promised to do, school closures would be greatly reduced.'
A spokesman for the Education and Manpower Bureau said the orders to schools to cease admissions were a consequence of a year-on-year drop of about 4,000 in the number of children entering Primary One. About 46,000 children sought a place through the bureau's allocation system this year, about 8 per cent fewer than last year.
