Swann (1985)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Contents, Introduction

Part I: Setting the scene
Chapter 1 The nature of society
Chapter 2 Racism: theory and practice
Chapter 3 Achievement and underachievement
Chapter 3 continued

Part II: Education for all
Chapter 4 Ethnic minorities and education: historical perspective
Chapter 5 Multicultural education: further studies
Chapter 5 continued
Chapter 6 'Education for all': a new approach

Part III: Major areas of concern
Chapter 7 Language and language education
Chapter 8 Religion and the role of the school
Chapter 9 Teacher education; employment of ethnic minority teachers
Chapter 9 continued

Part IV: 'Other' ethnic minority groups
Introduction
Chapter 10 Chinese children
Chapter 11 Cypriot children
Chapter 12 Italian children
Chapter 13 Ukranian children
Chapter 14 Vietnamese children
Chapter 15 'Liverpool Blacks'
Chapter 16 Travellers' children
Reflections and conclusions

Part V:
Main conclusions and recommendations

Appendices

Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups

Chairman: Lord Swann

Cmnd. 9453

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1985
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Chapter 10 The educational needs of children of Chinese origin
[pages 653 - 670]

Background

1. The Chinese community in this country numbers in excess of 100,000 and there are estimated to be some 30,000 children of Chinese origin in UK schools. The educational needs of children from this group have not tended to be the focus of as much attention as the needs of other Asian or West Indian children, and when we began to take evidence relating to their needs we were immediately faced with two very different interpretations of their situation - firstly, that they were 'ideal' pupils, who had no problems and represented a 'success story' amongst ethnic minority groups, or, alternatively, that they were a 'forgotten minority': 'invisible' pupils whose needs remained unrecognised and thus unmet by schools. As is often the case, we believe that the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes, but we feel the situation of the Chinese community illustrates clearly the pressures which bear on an ethnic minority community in this country seeking to retain its own individual character, culture and traditions.

Immigration

2. Chinese immigration to Britain developed in the 19th century when single males came to this country, mainly as seamen, and settled in major ports, chiefly London and Liverpool. Numbers were not large and by 1901 there were thought to be only 545 Chinese people in the whole country. Numbers continued to rise slowly but steadily however, and after the Second World War, with the sudden boom in the Chinese restaurant business, there was a sharp increase in immigration especially from Hong Kong. The pattern of immigration diversified during the 1960s from the traditional single males, with wives and children joining workers already established here, and some 80 per cent of the present Chinese population in this country have arrived within the last 20 years. Immigration to this country from Hong Kong has tended to decline since the late 1970s and a substantial proportion of the Chinese pupils of school age today have been born in this country, although some children are still arriving in schools direct from Hong Kong. The majority of the Chinese population in this country originates from the rural agricultural area of Hong Kong's New Territories.

Settlement

3. The centre of Chinese settlement in Britain is London, with a community of some 35-45,000, concentrated in the central Chinatown district, but sizeable communities are also to be found in Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham, and smaller settlements in Southampton, Bristol and other seaports. (Cardiff, Glasgow and Edinburgh are major centres outside England.) London's Chinatown constitutes a cultural and entertainment centre rather than an organisational heart to the community, which functions mainly on the basis of the individual, but extended, family unit. One of the most important factors to bear in mind when considering the Chinese community is the unique extent to which it is dispersed around the country, to all areas in fact where there are Chinese restaurants or 'takeaways'. Apart from the main areas of settlement mentioned above - and even in these the community is found only in 'scattered pockets' - Chinese children are usually therefore found in ones or twos in individual schools, often in isolated, rural areas which otherwise have no experience of providing for the educational needs of ethnic minorities. The scattered nature of the Chinese population also exacerbates the isolation of mothers and children who may not speak English. Quite apart from the educational consequences of this situation, which we consider below, as one witness put it to us:

'We are therefore not "visible" in the way that other groups in Brixton or Southall are and there is therefore no political pressure to recognise our needs.'

4. Even amongst the British-born Chinese community there seems to be an extremely strong sense of 'being Chinese'. There is a strong sense of pride in the Chinese heritage, and, to a certain extent at least, a sense of the superiority of the Chinese culture over all others. It is noticeable that Chinese communities around the world have retained their essential 'Chineseness' even over centuries of hostility. Whilst the so-called 'Chinese community' is in fact very diverse in character, with the clan system and 'surname societies' for example still playing important roles for people originating from various regions and with different languages and dialects, the community as a whole therefore presents a strongly unified identity to outside society. The sense of self-reliance and self-help seems to be exceptionally strong both within the Chinese community and within the individual Chinese family - as explained in evidence to us:

'There is a tendency ... for the Chinese to take matters in their own hands, rationalised by saying: "We are all Chinese" and "Don't let the foreigners despise us".'

Culture and religion

5. It is difficult to attempt to summarise the essential nature of Chinese culture briefly, since it embraces many complex philosophical concepts. According to Dr Hugh Baker, however, writing in the Nuffield Foundation's book 'Teaching Chinese Children' (1):

'... the hallmarks of Chineseness have been a philosophy based on the family, a settled agricultural economy, a universally applicable language, and a strong sense of cultural superiority ... The Chinese have stressed the importance of the family from earliest times. The Confucian philosophers refined and extended family consciousness through a carefully worked out hierarchy of relationships. Most important was the father-son relationship, the son being expected to obey, to serve, to respect and at all times to defer to the father ... Ancestor worship was the religion which gave strength and supernatural sanction to the family ... In this way everyone's position in this life and the after-life was rigidly circumscribed and made subject to the greater welfare of the family unit. The individual counted for little, except as the medium of transmission of the family line. The system made for great security within the family, though it stifled the individual freedom and initiative, and made conservatism an absolute virtue.'

'Confucius based his teachings on the concept of 'li' - respectful attitudes towards the ancestors and one's fellow men. He taught the rule "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others" and the significance of Five Relationships in society ... The concept of filial duty was of paramount importance ... The Tao (of Taoism) is literally the way, but it is used by philosophers ... to mean the course of nature, or reason. The Tao Te Ching (the standard work of Taoism) ... advocates a quietist submission to the course of nature; it preaches humility and compassion and the requiting of good for evil.'

'Buddhism is not a religion in the sense that it contains no special references to an eternal God. A Buddhist is simply an enlightened person who is aware of the practical consequences of morality ... Although there are many and varied interpretations of the Buddhist 'faith' in different parts of the world, the general principles enshrined in it have influenced much of Chinese thought and culture for many centuries.'

These then are the main cultural and religious influences on the Chinese community in this country, many of which appear to have a direct bearing on the educational experiences of Chinese children.

Education

Language

7. A major issue in relation to the education of Chinese children and young people is the difficulties that they experience in learning English. This is undoubtedly exacerbated by the dispersed nature of Chinese settlement which means that a Chinese child or a small number of Chinese children may be in a school that has no experience of ethnic minority children and more particularly has neither arrangements for, nor access to, E2L support. A reluctance to complain may put these children at particular risk unless teachers exercise sensitivity in identifying language needs, providing for these and monitoring language progress systematically. It is unlikely that individual schools will be able to respond in this way without support from their maintaining authorities.

8. Particular factors arise when considering the language needs of this group. As mentioned above, the Chinese written language bears very little direct relationship to the spoken language and is common to speakers of a range of Chinese languages which are mutually unintelligible. Chinese characters are basically symbols, similar to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Each character is made up of small pictures or symbols which function very similarly to the suffix and prefix in English. All the Chinese characters, more than 10,000, are constructed in six different ways, of which the most important is the 'likeness of shape' - thus

means 'sun', because the sun comes out each day it also means 'day', and every character starting with

usually concerns the sun, such as 'brightness', 'weather', 'sky' etc. The symbol for sun would however be read by a Chinese from Peking as 'ri' and by a Chinese from Canton as 'yat'. Because of the complexity of the written language, as explained in evidence to us:

'Chinese education has traditionally laid great emphasis on calligraphy and the memorisation of the written characters. Chinese pupils transfer these skills to English, learning to copy neatly and memorising the spelling of whole words; common faults however are copying without understanding and failure to see links between sound and spelling.'

'"And it's all done" said the head we spoke to, "in this fantastic handwriting all beautifully laid out. Sort of script writing, but not quite. More like italic writing if you remember that from the old days. It must take hours".'

'There are no tenses in Chinese. Time is indicated by adverbial phrases of time which are usually put before the verbs, e.g. "I yesterday watch television, I right here watch television, I tomorrow watch television" - word order alone determines whether a Chinese word is functioning as a noun, verb, adjective or adverb in that particular context, e.g. "they run quick", "a quick lunch" (adjective). The so called pidgin English "You good?" ("how are you?") is actually a transposition of the Chinese sentence order into English ... There are no definite/indefinite articles. Instead, nouns are preceded by "classifiers" describing the shapes of the objects, e.g. "flat thin" book "long thin" pencil ... There is no change of form for plural nouns. Numerals like "one", "two" or "a dozen" are used if the meaning of plurality is considered relevant to the message e.g. Two "flat thin" book, three "long thin" pencil ... 'L' and 'n' can be used interchangeably in Cantonese, so students usually confuse the pronunciation of these two sounds in English: e.g. "light" and "night", "labour" and "neighbour".'

11. Further difficulties, resulting from both linguistic and cultural factors, may also arise for schools in relation to the names, relations and ages of Chinese children as explained to us as follows:

'Misunderstanding can easily arise when the teacher tries to obtain from his pupil a. his surname, b. the number of brothers and sisters, and c. his age.

a. Names. The Chinese custom is to put the surname first. Next come either one or two "given names" or personal names. In many cases where a person has two given names he shares the first of these with other brothers and sisters. However Chinese children take readily to the idea of an English Christian name for use in school. We had two brothers called Wong Chi Dock and Wong Chi Moon. Wong was their surname and Chi a name which they shared. To conform with English usage they soon began to put their surname last, becoming Chi Dock Wong and Chi Moon Wong. They were then given English Christian names and became known as Tony Wong and Robert Wong.

b. The question "How may brothers have you?" may produce the reply "Two brothers" when the teacher knows that the pupil has only one brother. The pupil is in fact thinking in terms of "How many brothers are there" since Cantonese uses the same word for "have" and "there are".

c. Ages. Chinese pupils often give their age as one year older, or possibly two years older, than the teacher expects. According to Chinese tradition a child is one year old at birth (the nine months in the womb) and becomes two years old at the next Chinese New Year.'

12. From the evidence which we received, there seems to be little obvious discontent in the Chinese community with the school curriculum, although, as we have noted elsewhere, such apparent satisfaction with the work of schools may mask underlying concerns. However, there is no doubt that children and parents clearly appreciate teachers using elements of their cultural background in teaching since they see this as properly enhancing their culture in the eyes of the rest of the community. One witness we met felt, for example, that:

'The teaching of Chinese literature in translation could be a meaningful exercise in erasing cultural barriers. The contribution of Chinese classical drama to the exploration of mask/reality in drama classes is yet another area to be explored. The relationship between calligraphy and the power of abstraction could be a fascinating exercise. In history, the accuracy of the historical Chinese input needs to be seriously examined. More fascinating is the exploration of paradoxes in maths which existed in China 4,000 years ago. Rather than a strict religious education which never has the same significance in the Chinese culture as in the Indian cultures, a course for the senior secondary students on Chinese system of thought and attitudes towards life on a comparative basis may be a useful exercise in sorting out their own values.'

'Late arrivals'

13. In considering the educational needs of children of Chinese origin it is important to draw a distinction between those who were born in this country and those who have come to this country later, having already received some education in Hong Kong. In general terms, whereas, for the former group, the problems lie more with the maintenance of their cultural and linguistic background and with resolving possible identity crises and conflicts with parents, for the latter group, there is an overriding need for E2L help. A further dimension of this situation is the fact that, in the past, a number of Chinese parents in this country have sent their children back to Hong Kong for at least some of their education. When such children return to this country, at the age of perhaps 14 or 15, their educational problems can be particularly acute, especially when combined with the problems of readjusting to life in this country with their parents and younger brothers and sisters whom they may never have met before. The particular problems associated with Chinese children arriving in British schools aged 12+ were described thus in evidence to us:

'These children fall into two broad groups, namely those who arrive here as first time immigrants accompanying their parents and those who were born in the United Kingdom and were sent at an early age to live with a grandmother or other member of the extended family. This second group arose from the parents' concern for them to "absorb Chinese culture", and mainly to give the parents the freedom to both work and thereby save enough to start their own independent business. These children, to all intents and purposes, suffer the same disadvantage as those born in Hong Kong and brought here at a later stage. The central problem facing these children is the lack of facility in the English language. Coming as they do from the rural parts of Hong Kong, they invariably attend Chinese schools and have little or no contact with the English language. Their entry into the British school system is often quite a traumatic experience, with the first few months or first year taken up with acquiring a working knowledge of English. It is small wonder that many of them are characterised as quiet and withdrawn, and it is not unknown for teachers to interpret this as an indication of lack of intelligence. Promotion in a typical Chinese school is by achievement. Hence classes usually have students of different ages. Placement in British schools is normally by age. Thus difficulties with the language are compounded by placement in a class unsuited to the child's real attainment. Even in subjects, especially science and mathematics, where the student's knowledge matches that of his classmates, there is difficulty in finding out what the child actually knows and deciding how that child can continue to be effectively taught. There is evidence too that the practice of sending young children to Hong Kong and repatriating them to Britain later on is also declining. In recent years the trend has been to send for the grandmother to join the family here. The trend has also been reflected in the increased demand for places in Chinese language classes and the increase in the provision of such classes. Conversely, the availability of such classes has to some extent diminished the need to send children to Hong Kong to learn Chinese and acquire a "Chinese outlook".'

14. The most commonly expressed view of teachers about Chinese children seems to be to see them as having no serious problems and as being generally hard workers and high achievers and especially quiet and well-behaved - in short 'ideal pupils'. Whilst there may be some truth in this stereotype, as we pointed out in Chapter Two, if teachers allow themselves to react in response to this view of a 'typical' Chinese pupil, they may very well underestimate or even overlook educational difficulties, particularly in the field of language, which the child may be experiencing.

Parental attitudes

15. One leading Chinese community representative whom we met summarised the attitudes of Chinese parents towards education as follows:

'It is a truism to say that Chinese parents regard education as a good thing. Education was the traditional means to social betterment, and the high regard for education is reflected in the exalted and esteemed position held by teachers and scholars in Chinese society. However, this enthusiasm for education is tempered by the situation of the parents here. Most of our parents are themselves not educated to any high degree. They therefore cannot take part in any active sense in the education of their children. Their ignorance of the British system and educational methods often leads to misunderstanding and dissatisfaction. As most of the parents are in the catering trade the conditions and hours of their work make it exceedingly difficult for them to be involved with the schools. The language barrier also contributes to the problem of contact between parents and teachers. This lack of contact can give the impression to parents that teachers tend to seek them out only when there is serious trouble afoot.'

Home environment

16. One factor which has often been put forward as having a particular bearing on the educational situation of Chinese children is the fact that they may be expected to help in the family's restaurant when they return from school, often until late into the night, making them very tired for school the next day. As one witness explained:

'The catering trade involves hard work, and many of the Chinese restaurants are small, not very profitable "takeaways". Workers in the Chinese catering trade are more or less fully employed, and casual part-time labour is difficult to come by. Language problems make it impractical to employ non-Chinese speakers - though in the provinces indigenous part-time workers do serve at the counter. Older children are often recruited to help. in the family business where their facility in English (no matter how rudimentary) is an asset. Moreover, the traditional Chinese family concept places an obligation on all members of the family to help whenever and wherever the need arises.'

'Mother tongue' and community-based provision

17. The Committee's general views on the major issue of 'mother tongue' maintenance and teaching in mainstream schools have been dealt with in detail in the Language Chapter of this report but a number of particular points arise in relation to Chinese children which need to be considered in relation to their general educational needs. As explained above, the Chinese written language has a particular role in the Chinese heritage as the single unifying force for Chinese people over the centuries. Many parents may therefore see a command of the language as an essential factor in their children retaining their 'Chineseness'. The Chinese language is also the key to the Chinese literary heritage and so can be a crucial element in establishing the identity of an isolated Chinese child who may not have the support available to other ethnic minority children living in areas of high ethnic minority settlement or in strong religious communities. Chinese parents may speak little or no English themselves and in restaurants often only the waiters speak English whilst the cooks and other staff speak only Chinese and have no contact with anyone outside the Chinese community. If the children do not speak Chinese this can therefore lead to considerable communication problems and may accentuate the 'generation' and 'culture' gap which may already exist between them and their parents. As the child learns English at school, conflict may arise when he finds his parents are unable to understand him or the work he is doing and he may simply then reject his parents as 'stupid'. Clearly this situation, shared by other ethnic minorities, may thus lead to tensions, resentment and frustration. To remedy this the Chinese community around the country has established its own classes where children can learn to speak and write Chinese. Parents are very anxious for their children to attend (although the children we met were generally less enthusiastic) and are therefore willing to pay, and many classes are in fact oversubscribed. When these classes were set up they also had a social purpose in that they relieved parents of what some saw as the need to send their children back to Hong Kong in order to gain some knowledge of Chinese and the Chinese culture. In April 1982 the Hong Kong Government Office in London estimated that there were some 53 such classes (although there may be a few additional classes not recorded officially) with a total enrolment of 6,400 children. The sizes of these classes range from one school in London with a total of 967 pupils to others with perhaps only 20 pupils. The Hong Kong Government Office makes an annual cash grant towards the running costs of most established classes, as well as helping with textbooks. The majority of the textbooks and readers used are those currently in use in schools in Hong Kong itself. Some extracts from a recent article discussing various aspects of the operation of Chinese 'mother tongue' classes are attached as an Annex to this chapter.

18. We discussed at some length with all our witnesses their views on the possibility of teaching Chinese within the curriculum of mainstream schools. There seemed to be general agreement that the majority of the community prefer to retain the responsibility for 'mother tongue' provision themselves, seeing it as 'their responsibility', and something which their children could readily take on in addition to their normal school. As one Chinese community association put it in evidence to us:

'The community feels that as long as our children are able to carry on and have a good education we can carry out their other needs. As far as the maintenance of language and culture we will still carry on with our present provision although we would welcome help in the form of free lettings of school/college premises, educational materials, in-service training and educational training of our non-professional staff. We have the manpower, determination and will to maintain this sort of provision if help could be provided it would be some help.'

'In many places, particularly in some towns where the Chinese community is relatively small, the organisation of Chinese classes has become the unifying force of the community in the locality and surrounding areas. It has become the regular meeting place for parents, children and overseas students. Friendships are struck up - particularly amongst the mothers, personal or communal problems are brought up for discussion and solutions and assistance found. English lessons for adults come into existence, outings and other social and communal activities are organised. In short, some of the classes have become community centres.'

19. Much of our evidence referred to the shortage of suitable teachers to teach Chinese and it was mentioned that there were many well-qualified teachers in Hong Kong who were unable to get work permits to come here because of unemployment in the teaching profession. It was stressed however that teachers of Chinese did not necessarily have to come from Hong Kong since some people had taken degrees in Chinese at British universities and there were also FE courses in Chinese so existing teachers could study this specialism. In this respect it was also mentioned that the O Level Chinese examination was designed for English speakers learning Chinese and not for native Chinese speakers and some Chinese pupils therefore had difficulty in passing it, not because of their ability in Chinese but because of their command of English. This might therefore militate against Chinese youngsters who might consider a career in teaching languages.

Achievement

20. As with the other numerically smaller ethnic minority communities whom we have considered, there is a paucity of specific data relating to the educational achievement of Chinese pupils because of the absence of ethnically-based educational statistics. There was a strong impression however, from the majority of teachers and others from whom we received evidence, that, in general, Chinese pupils were doing well in educational terms although there were strong suggestions that they might nevertheless be underachieving in relation to their true potential primarily because of a lack of necessary language support, and also because of the general problems of a curriculum which was inappropriate to their background and needs, which we have found bearing on the achievement of ethnic minority pupils in general. Considerable emphasis was placed in the evidence we received on the very positive attitudes of Chinese youngsters and their parents towards education and on their high degree of motivation and aspiration - as one community representative put it to us:

'By and large, I find that our children are strongly motivated to do well at school. Their aspirations may be modest (car mechanic, electrician, HND) or ambitious (university and the professions), but generally they share a hopeful attitude towards the future.'

Careers

21. As far as careers are concerned, the Chinese community in this country is 'locked into' the restaurant and catering trade. In 1978 there were estimated to be some 6,500 Chinese restaurants and takeaways in this country. However we received a lot of evidence about the increasing resistance of British-born youngsters to this limited view of their futures. Some youngsters in Liverpool even spoke of going to Hong Kong to avoid working in the family restaurant. Where a youngster did want to try and break out of the traditional pattern of employment and pursue his or her education further, strong support and guidance was needed from the school. This was particularly so with girls because some Chinese parents still felt strongly that, as evidence from one Chinese organisation put it:

'Wives' places are at home, daughters are other people's daughters-in-law and therefore it is not really important that they have any achievements.'

Racism

22. Generally speaking, the Chinese community does not appear to have been subject to racism to the same extent as some other ethnic minority communities. This may be the result of a number of factors including their intentionally low profile, their lack of concentration in any particular area, and also the fact that they are seen to be performing a 'useful function' through providing Chinese restaurants and are not competing in the mainstream jobs market (although the latter situation may change in future as mentioned above). As James Watson explained in discussing the Chinese community in 'Between Two Cultures' (5), they still exist very much on the 'fringe' of majority society in this country and:

'... the economic niche that the Chinese control allows the migrants to live, work and prosper without changing their way of life to suit British social expectations.'

'There (is) no systematic discrimination so far against the Chinese at a local level. However individual cases of racial harassment are not unknown; number of known cases are reduced to a less official figure for a few reasons. The Chinese tend to be more tolerant and timid over political issues such as racial discrimination, their belief that it is other people's country and therefore there is no need to fight, the police attitude and their language difficulties also complicate the reporting of these cases.'

Conclusion

23. We feel that the situation of the Chinese community, and particularly the educational experiences of Chinese children, serve to emphasise further the general conclusions which we reached earlier in this report. The fact that Chinese children, because of the dispersed nature of their community, are often to be found in otherwise non-multiracial areas, further highlights the need for schools in such areas to adopt the broader approach to their work which we have already advocated. Throughout our consideration of the Chinese community, we were struck by their very strong sense of 'ethnic identity' which is perhaps surprising in a group which is so dispersed around the country and which might therefore be expected to become 'submerged' by the influence of the majority community. The fact that there are few signs of this happening lends weight to our view that cultural diversity is and will remain a feature of British society. The importance of the Chinese language in maintaining the community's identity was demonstrated by the firm commitment to community-based language classes which we found. We were concerned at the suggestion that the generally positive stereotype of Chinese pupils which appears to exist might in fact work against their interests in leading teachers to overlook any possible educational difficulties which they might be experiencing - this strengthens further the view which we took in our Racism Chapter of the need to counter stereotyped views of any ethnic minority group in order to ensure that all pupils are regarded on their own merits as individuals with differing needs and problems. In relation to racism, our various consultations with the Chinese community left us with a definite sense that the outward level of racism, both overt and covert, to which the community was subject, represented possibly only the 'tip of the iceberg' and that as Chinese youngsters in the future seek to enter the mainstream employment market there is a likelihood of them encountering similar obstacles to those already facing youngsters from other ethnic minority groups.

Annex: Extracts from 'Community Education: The Unknown Perspective - Chinese Mother Tongue Classes', Ming Tsow (6)
[pages 669 - 670]

The different kinds of classes could be roughly divided into the following:

a. Classes organised by Chinese associations and groups.
These groups may have commercial interests, trade orientations, clanmanship, (under the same surname such as the Wong association) based on mutual interest and self-help welfare.

b. Classes attached to Christian denominations.
Anglican and non-conformist groups predominate. In most instances both reading and writing in addition to religious lessons are taught. These religious classes are different from those of the Asian communities in which a different language is taught. In some ways, they are closer to the Greek and Cypriot religious classes as the language remains the same.

c. Newly formed groups.
These are in the very small minority which may be attached to centres and aided by direct grants from the government, e.g. in Liverpool, Manchester and in London. This is a pattern which other linguistic groups share as well.

Classes are held at various times, with weekends and Wednesdays after school hours particularly popular. Several classes are held simultaneously from morning to afternoon. The biggest class which is based in London is open from Monday to Sunday. The weekday, after school hours, lessons are normally from 5-7 p.m. The length of each teaching session can be from one hour to two hours.

Classes which are held in the club or centre which are owned by the association, are often limited and inadequate for the purposes of teaching. In church premises, the space may be big but owing to the different levels of teaching taking place, the situation is often one of a village school set-up in that several classes are simultaneously held in little groups. No more than 1/10 of the total Chinese establishments throughout the UK actually use the state school premises. The LEAs' attitudes may vary from providing free use of premises to a charge of rent. Some organisers of these classes have tried unsuccessfully to approach LEAs because of the various problems; primarily communication at linguistic and know-how levels and the difficulties of obtaining the cooperation of caretakers. Some attempts have consequently been wild goose chases with no result.

In the privately owned property such as centres, associations, etc. most of these classes will have no more than two to three rooms, the size of an average bedroom. Consequently a shift system is adopted. As many as six classes could be fitted in on Saturday or Sunday. The biggest privately owned premises is also the largest Chinese language class in the country (based in London) which has ten teaching rooms and two toilets. The kind of luxury of space provided here is well beyond the dream of the average or smaller group. No playgrounds are available and toilet facilities are minimal. Most of these establishments complain about the lack of library facilities. In a few instances, the club social room would double as a library more for storage of books than for reading.

However, even in these cramped quarters where at times forty-five children or more are learning to speak, read and write Chinese, the waiting list is surprisingly long.

Often the chairs and desks are bought from state schools which are closing down. Audio-visual aids are minimal with the exception of pictures and word cards. The usual blackboards, chairs and desks form the rudiments of provisions. The tidying up job is often insisted upon in state school premises, frequently with the help of the children. In the cases of makeshift arrangements such as the church hall, classrooms are set up and dismantled for the length of teaching hours.

Provisions such as crayons, exercise books, pencils, writing-paper/pads are often free for all. In one set up, four exercise books are allocated to one child per year. In others, for the primary age group, pencils are on loan for the period of attendance. The Hong Kong Government Office has been the prime donator of textbooks for those who chose to use textbooks from Hong Kong. Sometimes in the advanced education age group, textbooks are self-supplied.

The levels of classes taught are not commensurate with age, and they are not age-related but by ability. Most classes cover the kindergarten to primary groups although some would go into secondary classes and a few teach the GCE O and A Levels.

References

(1) 'Teaching Chinese Children - A Teacher's Guide'. The Nuffield Foundation. 1981.

(2) 'Aspects of Chinese Culture - Background Information for Teachers'. DE Ladlow. Liverpool Language Centre.

(3) 'Chinese Children in Derby'. Norman Fitchett. 1976.

(4) 'Children Children: research and action project into the needs of Chinese Children'. Garvey and Jackson. Cambridge Educational Development Trust. 1974.

(5) 'Between Two Cultures: migrants and minorities in Britain'. Ed. James L Watson. 1977.

(6) Journal of Community Education. Vol. 2. No. 1. February 1983.