Drama Education
An intergration of arts


By Iris Cheng

Drama is now an optional subject in some secondary schools rather than an extra-curricular activity. The Education and Manpower Bureau encourages schools to incorporate drama lessons into their art curriculums.

Pentecostal Lam Hon Kwong School was the first school in Hong Kong to put this into practice. Since September 2000, all its Form 1 to Form 3 students have had to attend two drama lessons a cycle.

Chin Tak Shun, chairman of the Hong Kong Teachers’ Drama Club, is the teacher in charge of this project in the school.

“Drama education is not about stage production. Whether students can produce a good play or not is also unimportant,” he said.

Instead, it means to help students “to create, perform and respond”. Drama teachers seek to cultivate students’ creativity, to help them in expression and communication, and to develop their abilities to analyze and respond to daily experiences.

According to Fong Kam Yuen, senior curriculum development officer for the Education and Manpower Bureau, the aim of introducing drama education is to diversify art education.

“We hope students can enjoy different art forms like drama and dance apart from fine art and music,” he said.

The school also wants students to have more choices.

Mr. Chin said, “We do not mean drama is superior to music or fine art. Drama is simply an alternative form of art.”

But drama has its distinct features. For example, it is an integration of different forms of art. It includes music, dance and literature.

Despite the benefits of drama education, only nine schools in Hong Kong have incorporated it into their curriculums.

Pui Ching Middle School has no plan to implement drama in its curriculum.

Ho Lic Ko, supervisor of the school’s drama club, said he had never heard of drama education.

“I agree that this is a fantastic idea, but there are many difficulties,” said he.

A lack of qualified teachers is the major problem.

Mr. Chin said, “There are very few experts in this field in Hong Kong.”

People experienced in producing drama may not be suitable for teaching because stage production is different from drama education.

Besides, Mr. Ho said, one teacher cannot handle 40 students during drama lessons.

In Pentecostal Lam Hon Kwong School, each class is split into two groups of 20. They are taught by two different teachers. This increases the demand for teachers.

To ease the situation, the government’s Curriculum Development Institute organized a project called “The Seed Project”. Schools participating in the program receive help in drama education.

Twenty teachers are taking a 20-lesson training course. They are learning concepts of drama education and how to conduct lessons.

Mr. Chin said, “But 20 teachers are inadequate to serve all the schools in Hong Kong.”

Mr. Fong said that the government is discussing the lack of qualified teachers with the Institute of Education and The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. They discussed plans to offer drama training to teachers, as well as possible degree programs in drama education.

Another problem is a lack of teaching materials.

Mr. Chin said teachers make their own course materials. They do research and publish textbooks in the school.

Teachers finished the first half of the whole junior secondary syllabus in January 2003.

Mr. Chin is afraid that after The Seed Project expires, teachers may not have enough resources to finish writing the materials.

Besides course materials, teaching drama requires special facilities and equipment.

According to Mr. Chin and Mr. Ho, it at least requires simple lighting and sound systems, and a spacious room for students to move about.

The school solved the problem by applying to the Quality Education Fund in 1999. It enabled the school to build two performing arts rooms with basic equipment.

However, the government gives no money to schools involved in The Seed Project.

Mr. Fong said that drama education needs little hardware. Provision of resources is thus unnecessary.

In addition, both Mr. Ho and Mr. Chin said that allocation of time is another major obstacle.

The curriculum guide states: “About 10 to 15 percent of teaching time in primary schools, and 8 to 10 percent in junior secondary schools, should be allocated to drama education.”

But in order to meet these expectations, schools must reduce time spent on current subjects. This may adversely affect the existing instruction schedule.

“Principals, teachers, parents and students are concerned about academic performance.

“They are discouraged from spending valuable time on drama that could be better applied to learning Chinese or English,” said Mr. Ho.

Pentecostal Lam Hon Kwong School solved the problem by reducing time on mathematics and a new subject called “integrated project-based learning”, a combination of history, geography, computer science and civic education.

Mr. Ho raised another problem, having to do with assessment.

In Mr. Chin’s school, assessment is based on students’ ability “to create, perform and respond”.

They have assignments and examinations that mainly test students’ thoughtfulness and creativity.

Regarding the future of drama education, Mr. Chin said, “If there are enough resources, I believe more schools will do the same thing.”