Secondary schools’ expansion lays bare land shortage issues

Urban Planning Committee members have expressed concerns over the joint expansion of two secondary schools in the northern district of Toi San. Their remarks follow a request by one of the schools to be allowed to increase its height to 50 meters, which would be similar to a building with eight to ten stories. Despite the keen discussion over the height grant during yesterday’s committee meeting, members are yet to show explicit positions on the decision.
During the committee’s ninth plenary conference, where its members proposed to devote some of the idle land plots to developing education, Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) representative Wong Kin Mou stressed the necessity of granting additional space to some schools, as local students lack activity space outside of their classrooms.
Saint Joseph Secondary School 5 and Our Lady of Fatima Girls’ School, which are quite close to each other, were entitled to maximum land coverage rates. However, the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosário, advised that both rates be brought down to 7 percent in order to allow for outdoor activities.
Vong Kuoc Ieng, headmaster of Choi Nong Chi Tai School, located in the northern district, said that most schools are run within the first few floors of a building in his school’s region, and are below par in terms of activity space.
“Classrooms are basically limited to being situated on the first five floors, above which are all functional rooms. It’s the students who would benefit from the height, as the library, hall and basketball court are all on the roof,” said Vong, adding that local students only enjoy half the general activity space for education compared with the Asian average of 22 square meters per person.
Those studying in the north of the city only have an activity space of four or five square meters. The secretary also admitted that the city lacked enough land to develop schools, but pledged that the space reserved for education in the reclaimed Zone A would be a great solution to the issue. Asked how the promise would be kept, Rosário told media that the Urban Planning Committee, along with related regulations, were established to ensure the region’s land was properly planned and developed. Staff reporter