Grant School (Hong Kong) - Background

Background

The emergence of Grant Schools is related to a specific historical context. When the colony of Hong Kong was established as Britain's trading outpost in the Far East, the need of local education for trade as well as administer the territory were found. However the colonial government was not able to provide a sufficient education as needed. After the passage of Elementary Education Act 1870 by the imperial parliament, which allowed state funding to Church schools, the colonial government followed suit and adopted the similar measures to provide public education by limited financial resources.

The resulting 1873 Grant Code is a product of the aforementioned development. It regulates the criteria for admission to the grant-in-aid scheme and other the standards of the schools. The government also provides land and gives grants to establish schools. In turn the duty of administering the day to day operation of the schools fall into the hand of the missionaries. Grant-in-aid from the government provided only part financial income for the schools, donations and tuition fees are other sources to finance the schools. The government thus have the church to shoulder the financial and administrative burden of providing education, and in turn the church have another platform to expand their missionary activities.

The number of Grant Schools peaked at the end of 19th century, with more than 100 schools receiving grants under the Grant Code. The majority of the Grant Schools by that time were the vernacular schools which provided Chinese education. Nevertheless, these vernacular schools were criticized by the school inspectors for their appalling academic performance. Students were near-illiterate and could not handle subject knowledge. On the other hand, the government introduced a parallel “Subsidy” system (using the Subsidy Code) which was less restrictive. Some schools opted for the new Subsidy and dropped the Grant, creating a fall-off in the number of Grant Schools. As a result, the government decided to abandon the Grant system in 1921 except for a few competent schools. For the newly founded schools after 1921, only the qualified ones were allowed to join the Grant system. They were mostly schools giving Western education in European languages. The remaining schools of the Grant system later formed the Grant Schools Council (see below) and operated till today.