'It's Time To Aim For Smaller Class Teaching'

The head of an education concern group said on Monday that he supports short-term measures to deal with the shrinking student population, noting that tens of thousands of cross-border students could return once the pandemic situation stabilised.

Last week, an alliance of secondary school principals called for class numbers to be maintained but class sizes be reduced.

Mervyn Cheung from the Hong Kong Education Policy Concern Organisation said the Education Bureau was not in favour of this, as it felt the decline in students was systemic.

Cheung said officials should use the opportunity to introduce small-class teaching to improve the overall learning experience for pupils.

"Smaller class teaching has assumed a new perspective," he said.

Cheung also said the turnover rate for teachers had increased to 7.1 percent for primary teachers and 7.8 percent for secondary teachers, compared to 4.2 percent and 4.6 percent respectively the year before.

But he said schools previously were "troubled" by an oversupply of teachers coming out of the training colleges to replace the experienced teachers.

"Outgoing teachers have been replaced by graduates from the local universities, especially the teacher training institutes. So for the time being I think that would give a very good opportunity for building up a succession system in the local schools," Cheung said.