Education Secretary Christine Choi on Friday dismissed criticism that officials don't show sympathy for primary schools that fail to attract enough pupils, as she revealed that five of them will not receive grants to run primary one classes in the new school year.

The five schools were unable to attract the required minimum of 16 pupils through the government's central allocation system.

However, Choi said that this didn't mean that the government is "killing" the schools, explaining that if the schools' governing bodies could bear the costs and run the primary classes on a private basis, they could rejoin the government's central allocation system next year if they managed to attract more students and meet the required minimum of 16 pupils.

Three of the primary schools are one pupil short of the minimum. One of them is St. Charles School in Kennedy Town, which is almost 70 years old.

Choi disagreed that the government is unsympathetic to these schools. She said that no matter what the minimum enrolment is, there will always be occasions when a school is one student short.

"The minimum enrolment has been relaxed from 24 to 16. No matter what the number is, there will always be situations where a school is just one pupil short. If you say the government is unsympathetic because these schools are one student short of the minimum requirement of 16, there could be a situation where the requirement is 15 and some schools are one student short. So where should the line be drawn?" she told reporters after attending a Legco committee meeting.

She added that having fewer than 16 students in a grade is not good for students' learning.