Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement
The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) is an agreement between the Government of Canada and approximately 86,000 Native Canadians who at some point were enrolled as children in the Canadian Indian residential school system, a system which was in place between 1879 and 1996. The IRSSA recognized the damage inflicted by the residential schools and established a $2 billion compensation package for all former IRS students and, in particular, those who had been abused or otherwise harmed. The agreement, announced in 2006, was the largest class action settlement in Canadian history. As of December 2012 a total of $1.62 billion has been paid to 78,750 former students.
Workers' Children Secondary School
In 1946 the missionary bishop Ronald Hall proposed to various trade unions that they should band together to form a society for the education of workers' children. The "Education Advancement Society for the Children of Workers in Hongkong and Kowloon" was thus formed. The society opened seven schools in 1947, at Mong Kok, Wan Chai, Apliu Street (Sham Shui Po), Hing Man Street (Shau Kei Wan), Sai Wan Ho, Jaffe Road, and Portland Street. The Mongkok school was housed in government premises and had 556 students in April 1947. More schools opened in 1948. These schools were often not in permanent premises but in rented flats. The government was still working to rehabilitate schools ruined during the Japanese occupation of World War II.