Legislators accused Education Secretary Michael Suen Ming-yeung of deliberately putting off introducing smaller classes in secondary schools to reserve political capital for the next administration.
Dithering over the issue had turned Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen's administration into a lame-duck government, they said.
At a meeting of the legislature's education panel early last month, Suen again rejected the call for smaller classes as a way of preventing school closures because of falling enrolments. He said: 'Having small classes in secondary schools is not the government's policy. We are an executive-led government. The government puts forward policies. We have our own way to lay down policy.'
The maximum class size in secondary schools is now 34. To stay open, a school must have at least three classes and 61 students.
The Professional Teachers' Union wants a policy of smaller classes to be gradually brought in so that, eventually, classes have a maximum of 24 pupils. At 318 primary schools, 69 per cent of the city's 463 primary schools, there are 25 students in classes.
Small-class teaching was introduced at primary level last year, but Suen said before it takes place in secondary schools, 'we want to stabilise the situation first through the introduction of the [voluntary class reduction scheme]'.
