Students needing rehabilitation overwhelm college Hong Kong's only secondary school with rehabilitation services for teenage drug abusers is struggling to cope with soaring demand for its services. The Christian Zheng Sheng College on Lantau Island has capacity for about 60 students, but 108 were enrolled last year and about 80 remain this year. Space is tight and facilities are limited. The students and about a dozen teachers and staff, for example, are forced to share six temporary toilets - four for males and two for females. 'The number of students has grown so quickly but our facilities are not catching up with the increasing demand,' principal Chan Siu-cheuk said. 'It is a nightmare when the students have to wait for their turn to go to the toilet in the morning as we do not have enough toilets.' Lack of beds is another problem. Teachers and the principal sometimes sleep on the assembly hall floor. The school's enrolment is growing as drug use among teenagers grows. The number of youngsters arrested for drugs-related offences during the first half of the year nearly doubled over the same time last year, from 204 to 403, according to police statistics released this week. Those arrested are also getting younger, police said. 'We used to have only three or four teenage girls 10 years ago, but now we have 12 - sadly, we have enough to form a female basketball team this year,' Mr Chan said. 'We used to have only a couple of dozen boys, but now we have more than 70.' Zheng Sheng is the only registered private school that offers treatment and rehabilitation services for young drug abusers. It is also a registered LCC and Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination centre. Some students are referred to the school by social workers or probation officers. Others are sent by their parents. About 75 per cent of the school's budget comes from students' welfare payments, 15 per cent from sales of students' handicraft items and video productions, and 10 per cent from private donations. Earlier this year Zheng Sheng asked the Education and Manpower Bureau to allow it to move into the Heung Yee Kuk Southern District Secondary School in Mui Wo, which has been ordered to close because of low enrolment. 'Our college also has written to apply to become a direct subsidy school. But the bureau does not seem to be supportive of the idea,' Mr Chan said. The bureau told the school in April that its requests to be designated a direct subsidy school (DSS) and to move to Mui Wo would involve a 'substantial expansion [of the school] and a change in funding mode'. The bureau said it had no policy allowing a private school to join the DSS system. 'It is not our intention to expand. It just happens that the demand for our services is growing quickly, as the age of drug abusers is getting younger,' Mr Chan said. An Education Bureau spokeswoman said: 'We are still awaiting the college's clarification regarding re-provisioning vis-a-vis expansion or development into a DSS secondary school and in the latter case, justification for the significant expansion in student numbers and the viability of such expansion both physically and financially if the college were to remain self-financing'. She said the bureau and the Social Welfare Department would jointly assess the case after receiving the school's responses. Undaunted by setbacks in its quest to expand its resources, Zheng Sheng has no plan to shorten the length of time students stay at the school. The probation period for most teenagers at the college is two years, but some stay longer. 'The longer the teenagers stay here, the stronger their immune systems will be. When they stay at our school, they can learn at their own pace and they learn new skills every day,' Mr Chan said. 'Many of them prefer staying here until after they have taken the HKCEE, as they are worried that they cannot catch up with their studies if they go back to mainstream schools.' The government and some academics may doubt the effectiveness of smaller classes, but Zheng Sheng has proved its ratio of students to teachers - about 10 to one - can help in the quest to provide a quality education. 'The children need love, care and our attention. We have to do re-parenting and teach them how to behave like a normal and decent person,' Mr Chan said. The school's success is reflected in statistics - only one of the 43 Form Five students to graduate between 2000 and 2005 had suffered a drug relapse. 'With such a high success rate, I really hope the government can inject more resources for us or at least help us relocate to an empty secondary school so that we can help more teenagers,' Mr Chan said. Showing school spirit The college has admitted about 500 young people since it was established in 1998 Percentage who have stayed drug-free 65%
