Although the government will expand a special school in Tuen Mun to improve the teaching environment of the school, a number of legislators blasted the Education Bureau for its inadequate improvement work, including the fact that the per capita area is still lower than the territory’s average after expansion, and questioned the authorities’ attitude in handling the special school issue. As the representative of the Bureau, Under Secretary for Education Choi Yeuk-lin said that improvements would be made depending on the environment of the special schools, but I wonder if this will calm the anger of the Members.
The Legislative Council Finance Committee this afternoon (11) to consider the expansion plan of Hong Chi Tuen Mun Morning Post School, to build a 3-storey new wing building to provide 5 classrooms and teaching facilities, the estimated cost involves $61.2 million. Although the motion was eventually passed, Councillor Michael Tien was dissatisfied with the government’s failure to also address the issue of sharing the school hall with another school, and was concerned about whether the authorities would undertake to find vacant school premises to split the two schools.
In response, Tsoi said that the Bureau would improve the environment of the special schools, and that if a school needed a new school building, it could compete for the use of the vacant school building. The answer to this question has provoked a series of dissatisfaction from Michael Tien, including concern about the expansion of the school and the increase in school places at the same time, and concern about the amount of space per student. The authorities said that after the expansion, the space per student will increase from 5.1 square meters to 12.6 square meters, which is lower than the average of Hong Kong.
Later, the Member who asked the question, Mr. Cheng Chung-tai, described the opinion just put forward by Mr. Tien as too avant-garde in the Bureau’s eyes, questioning the Administration’s attitude in dealing with special education, which is only “handing over” and has not considered the issues raised by Mr. Tien and the actual needs of special students. He also reiterated that another special school had proposed an expansion earlier, but after completing consultation with local residents, the authorities cited a cost of more than HK$40 million as the reason for not finding it worthwhile to expand, and was therefore concerned about the government’s criteria in processing applications for expansion of different schools. The authorities responded that the objective environment of different schools is different, and reiterated that the authorities have conducted a review of more than 40 special schools in Hong Kong in the early years.
It is not unreasonable to find out that the support needed by students of special schools is even more than that of ordinary students. If the Education Bureau continues to have the mentality of doing everything to get things done, how can Hong Kong’s education problems be improved?
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