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Following is a speech (English only) by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Joseph W P Wong, at the ceremony for participants of the In-service Programme for Guangdong Primary English Teachers at the Hong Kong Institute of Education today (Friday):

Professor Hayhoe, Dr Pang, Professor Leong, teachers,

I am very pleased to be here today to participate in this landmark exchange programme between Hong Kong and Guangdong.

On behalf of the Hong Kong SAR Government, I extend a very warm welcome to all our Guangdong participants. We are excited that you are here for this very meaningful pilot programme, to take part in the course offered by the Hong Kong Institute of Education, and to share with local teachers your expertise and experience from Guangdong.

This three-week immersion course marks a significant beginning for both the Guangdong Province and Hong Kong. It will lay the foundation for similar exchanges between Hong Kong and Guangdong in future, and together we can further improve English language education for our students. As Guandong Province and Hong Kong are both predominantly Chinese-speaking communities, we face similar challenges in promoting the standard of English education, and I am sure we have a lot to learn from each other.

The Hong Kong SAR Government places strong emphasis on education --- and in particular, language education. We aim to develop our students to become biliterate (that is, to be competent in written English and Chinese) and trilingual (that is, to be fluent in English, Cantonese and Putonghua). With English being the international language of business and finance, we consider it crucial for our future workforce to be equipped with a high level of English proficiency. With this objective in mind, we place particular importance on the training of English teachers. Our English language teachers benefit from a wide range of in-service training programmes offered by the Government and our tertiary institutions. To ensure our English language teachers are up to standard, we will be requiring them to reach specific language benchmarks by either attending training courses or taking a benchmark assessment.

We have also introduced a series of English language improvement measures for our students in recent years, including a major curriculum review; school-based English enhancement programmes; extensive reading and writing schemes, and the Native English-speaking Teacher scheme whereby each public sector secondary school is provided with an additional English language who is a native speaker of English.

These measures are designed to enable our students to learn English in the best possible language environment. In your visits to local schools, you have had the opportunity to observe first-hand how English is taught in our schools. I hope that you will share your insights and suggestions on how we can further improve the teaching and learning of English.

Before closing, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Hong Kong Institute of Education again for conducting this programme, and to congratulate Professor Leong and his team for a job well done. The dedicated professionalism of Professor Leong and his colleagues, and of course the full support of the Education Department of Guangdong, has made this programme possible.

I look forward to more cooperative projects in education between Hong Kong and Guangdong in the years to come. And I hope you will enjoy and make the best of your stay here in Hong Kong.

Thank you.

End/Friday, July 2, 1999

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