Chapter 7 General Findings from Secondary School Sector
7.1 Access, connectivity and usage
7.1.1 Access to school IT facilities Quantity and locations of hardware
Table 7.1 gives an overview of the mean numbers of different types of hardware in secondary schools, obtained from School IT Survey Item 2a. These numbers are fairly impressive and the total number of computers well exceeds the minimum target of 82 specified in the Five-Year Strategy. The averages of 164.7 desktop computers and 72.3 notebook computers per school are higher than the averages of 135.6 (desktop) and 33.5 (notebooks) reported in the Preliminary Study for secondary schools, showing considerable increases during the interim period since then. These figures indicate that secondary schools are extremely well provided for, and show a marked improvement since the Preliminary Study.
Chapter 7: General Findings from Secondary School Sector
Table 7.1: Quantity of hardware (School IT Survey, Q. 2a)
Item Mean SD
Desktop computers 164.7 56.4
Notebook computers 72.3 35.4
Server machines 7.4 3.5
Application servers 7.7 3.9
Application server that do not run on MS Windows/NT platform 0.8 0.4
Wireless LAN 1.9 4.5
Video Capture Encoding System 2.8 5.0
Video Conferencing System 0.4 0.8
Digital camera 4.0 3.8
Voice input/recognition system 0.8 4.6
Video broadcasting system 0.4 0.6
Digital Camcorder 2.9 2.2
Electronic musical instrument 1.8 5.1
Visualisers 3.6 5.1
Color Laser Printers 1.5 1.6
Bar code scanner 2.0 1.4
CD-RW 14.4 14.1
DVD-writers 0.6 1.1
LCD Monitors 11.0 17.0
Smart card reader 0.7 1.8
Note: N = 378
These data show that the schools have acquired a range of equipment including digital cameras, CD-RWs, digital cam-corders, visualisers, LCD projectors and servers. The numbers of these items are far more than those recorded in primary schools (see Chapter 6). 88.4% of the schools reported having more than 160 computers, and only 1.3% reported having 81 or less. LCD monitors and visualisers were the most frequently reported peripherals, although there were not many of either reported. The distribution of schools with respect to the total number of computers is shown in Table 7.2.
Table 7.2: Distribution of schools with respect to total number of computers
Total number of computers in school Number of schools %
≥ 321 36 9.5
241-320 133 35.2
161-240 165 43.7
82-160 39 10.3
≤81 5 1.3
Total 378 100
The average ratio of students to computers available for student use is 8 to 1 (SD = 4.7). When taking into account all of the computers in schools, including in general offices, staff rooms, libraries etc., the ratio is 4.6 students per computer. This shows a progressive improvement in the ratio from the average of 36 students per computer for Hong Kong reported in the SITES-M1 study and 7.5 reported in the Preliminary Study for secondary schools. It can be seen from Table 7.3 (only taking into account the computers that are accessible to students) that the majority of schools have student to computer ratios that fall within the range of 4 to less than 12 students per computer (84%). 9.3% of the schools with better than four to one ratio and 1.1% have 20 or more students per computer.
Table 7.3: Distribution of schools with respect to student-computer ratio
Student-computer ratio Number of schools %
≥ 20 4 1.1
16 – <20 3 0.8
12 – <16 18 4.8
8 – <12 135 35.6
4 – <8 183 48.4
< 4 35 9.3
Total 378 100
Table 7.4: Locations of computing/network facilities installed (School IT Survey, Q. 2b)
Locations N Computers LCD Projectors Network ports Wireless, hub or switch connection
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
General classrooms 378 10.5 12.2 15.5 11.3 25.2 11.7 0.0 0.0
Computer rooms 376 42.0 22.1 1.7 0.8 45.0 24.2 0.0 0.0
MMLC 348 45.2 10.3 1.0 0.3 44.6 14.8 0.0 0.0
ITLC 109 38.4 11.0 1.1 0.6 38.4 16.7 0.0 0.0
Library 377 10.5 7.1 0.3 0.8 12.2 7.9 0.0 0.0
Special rooms for educational purposes
355 16.6 19.1 6.9 3.7 17.5 19.4 0.0 0.0
Staff rooms 375 18.4 20.0 0.1 0.5 35.0 26.7 0.01 0.2
General office 376 7.2 2.7 0.2 0.9 8.5 5.4 0.0 0.0
Computer laboratory 103 29.2 18.5 1.3 2.0 30.7 21.4 0.2 1.7
Note: The means in these tables represent the average numbers calculated for the schools that reported to have the facilities housed in the particular location.
N = Number of schools reporting to have computing/network facilities installed in that location
As can be seen from Table 7.4, which reports the School IT Survey Item 2b, on average 10.5 computers per secondary school have been allocated to general classrooms. This is considerably higher than the overall average of 3 computers per school allocated to general classrooms reported in the Preliminary Study. Those secondary schools that reported having specialised computer rooms, MMLCs or ITLCs indicated an average of 42 computers in computer rooms, 45.2 per MMLC and 38.4 per ITLC. This is slightly lower than the Preliminary Study data of an average 47.6 computers in computer rooms. However, this must be interpreted in the light of two factors: (1) the overall numbers of computers in schools have increased tremendously in other locations, and (2) the likely effect of sampling differences in the two studies. There has also been an increase in the numbers of computers in special rooms for educational purposes (from 10.7 in the Preliminary Study to 16.6 in this Study).
Schools indicated an average of 15.5 LCD projectors per school located in general classrooms.
The data collected from the School Visits provide further information about the locations of computers in the sub-sample of schools visited. In some schools there are no computers installed in classrooms but teachers use notebook computers belonging to the school or bring their own. Very often when there is no computer installed in classrooms, teachers use notebooks and in other cases the equipment is wheeled from room to room on a trolley. In some cases, the space limitations in staff rooms restrict the set up of desktop computers for teachers to use but notebook computers were observed to be in common use.
In the School Visits it was also found that all secondary schools had places for student to access computers out of school hours. The provisions were made mostly at recess time and before or after school. Some schools have provisions to make the school IT facilities available for weekend or evening classes.
Chapter 7: General Findings from Secondary School Sector
Table 7.5: Percentage of schools with school website and email accounts for teachers, students and parents (School IT Survey, Q. 4a)
Services Number of schools with the
services
%
School website 377 99.7
Subject/teaching websites or homepages 334 88.4
Intranet for staff 356 94.2
Teachers’ homepages (one or more) 306 81.0
Intranet for students 326 86.2
Students’ homepages (one or more) 254 67.2
Email accounts on school email server dedicated to:
Teaching staff 231 61.1
Students 164 43.4
Parents 42 11.1
Free email accounts from other sources allocated by school to:
Teaching staff 321 84.9
Students 208 55.0
Parents 64 16.9
N = 378
Table 7.5 shows the percentages of schools with school website and email accounts for teachers, students and parents, as reported in the School IT Survey item 4a. Clearly, nearly all of the secondary schools in the sample have a school website. 231 schools have email servers. 61.1% of the schools have provided email accounts to staff, 43.4% have provided email accounts to students, but only 11.1% have provided accounts for parents. 94.2% of the schools have developed an intranet for staff and 81% or more have subject or teaching websites (88.4%), teachers’ homepages (81%) or intranets for students (86.2%).
Connectivity
All secondary schools surveyed reported having connection to the Internet. Of these, 97.6% reported they have broadband Internet connection, and 68.7% have a connection at 10 Mbps or above (School IT Survey item 2c). 96.9% of the responding schools have school intranet (School Heads’
Questionnaire item 8). From School IT Survey item 2b(i) it can be seen that while most of the schools have network ports in general classrooms and 61.9% of the respondents to this item have them in 25 or more rooms, 5% indicated that they do not have them in any general classrooms.
96.3%-98.2% of the students from those schools with websites said they knew about this (Students’
Questionnaire item 14a), suggesting that there is a high level of awareness among the secondary school students about this facility.
Budgeted Expenditure
Table 7.6: Budgeted expenditure on IT in Education in school for academic year 03/04 (School Heads’
Questionnaire, Q. 13)
Items Total reported
amount
% of total expenditure by
school on IT
Number of schools reporting non-zero
expenses
Hardware 41 165 004 45.7 316
Consumable items and other general expenses 19 515 622 21.7 329
Technical support services (excluding resources/
grants/allowances provided by government)
11 207 115 12.4 265
Software 10 398 336 11.5 312
Professional training/development for staff 2 331 600 2.6 268
Others 5 478 528 6.1 88
Total 90 096 205 100 -
Huge progress in IT infrastructure in schools over the five-year period is not surprising since the EMB Document analysis gives a very clear picture of the extensive amount of financial, advisory and training input, and support given by the EMB. As can be seen from Table 7.6 (School Heads’
Questionnaire item 13), the total budgeted expenditure on IT by the responding secondary schools for the academic year 2003/04 was approximately HK$90 million. The highest proportion of expenditure was on hardware, consumables and technical support. Professional development and training for secondary school staff received a very small sum from the school budget in comparison to the amount spent on hardware. However, as explained in Chapter 6, this low proportion of budgets allocated to professional development/training for staff is a consequence of other provisions having been made for this purpose and should not be misconstrued to suggest that this has not been given attention. Most of the school heads regard hardware as the most important element in the ITEd initiative and allocate more expenditure to this than to other areas.