Dear Editor,
School enrolment has been declining, thanks to the decreasing birth rate in Hong Kong. While controversies concerning whether small-class teaching or class reduction is a better solution are stirred up, the government advocates the latter for secondary schools. Being a secondary student myself, I believe confidently that the government’s choice could not really eradicate the issue. In fact, I deem that it is small-class teaching which could uproot the problem. My arguments are as follows:
The most serious problem is the government’s attitude. The officials of the Education Bureau are opposing small-class teaching for a ridiculous reason: the great cost needed for small-class teaching. Is it reasonable that we save money at the expense of students’ and teachers’ fate? Definitely not! Although a large sum of budget required can be burdensome to the government’s finance, we cannot conclude that the other way – class reduction, is a better solution. In light of this, the government officials, who can only see one side of the issue, are rather short-sighted. As a matter of fact, small-class teaching is particularly beneficial to secondary students and teachers while class reduction is detrimental to them.
Small-class teaching is very advantageous in a way that it helps teaching and learning a lot. Under the present class size of around 40 students, teaching can be quite harsh (for teachers) because they simply cannot make sure most students understand what they teach, especially for topics that require in-depth understanding. By implementing small-class teaching, teachers could better understand each student’s needs and cater to them correspondingly, even though time is limited. Moreover, it makes students more active as it is easier for them to express themselves in the face of fewer classmates. Eventually, teaching quality is lifted, and students gain.
Meanwhile, class reduction puts teachers’ jobs in jeopardy. As class reduction will lead to an active drop in the demand of secondary teachers, many of them would end up jobless if implemented. What it gives rise to is a wastage of resources – teachers, being the professionals whom society spent a lot to nurture, become useless then. Contradictorily, we would be ‘wasting resources’ in a bid to save resources. What’s more, class reduction is simply unfair to secondary teachers, some of whose career would be ruined even after years of hard work to become educators.
Therefore it is crystal clear why small-class teaching should be preferred to class reduction. Furthermore, we ought to bear in mind that the ultimate goal of education is to equip students comprehensively so that they can serve our community well when they are grown up. Having it rooted in our minds, we would naturally make it our first priority when we consider the possible solutions of under-enrolment of secondary schools.
To begin with, a large sum of money notwithstanding, small-class teaching should become our long-term target. Only if we embark on small-class teaching could up-to-standard teaching quality be maintained. Otherwise, under-enrolment would persist while teachers would continue finding it hard to teach well. But for certain, we are not meant to apply small-class teaching on a large scale very shortly, instead, we can do it step by step.
I suggest the government has experiments with some secondary schools on small-class teaching for starters, and expands the scale of the practice according to different schools’ needs. It allows time for students, teachers and the Bureau to revise the plan from time to time so as to further improve it. When it becomes mature enough, it should be then put into a full-scale practice. So it is possible that we eventually adapt to small-class teaching!
To sum up, I think it is time our government started trying out with small-class teaching as it is more beneficial to teachers, students and society as a whole in the long-term. Class reduction is just an ad-hoc and undesirable measure. We are not subjected to a dilemma, as long as we act wisely. After all, shouldn’t students’ interest be given the highest priority?
Yours faithfully,
Chris Wong
Chris Wong