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Transcript of remarks by SED
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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Education, Mr Eddie Ng Hak-kim, at a media session after attending a radio programme today (March 12):     

Reporter: Mr Ng, is there a shortage of educational psychologists in Hong Kong and how would you improve the situation?

Secretary for Education: I believe the shortage of professional educational psychologists has been a universal problem. In the case of Hong Kong, other than the team we have in the Education Bureau, which is a very good team, now supporting, with one psychologist to around six to 10 schools. And then in this year's Policy Address we already mentioned that we are setting a new goal hopefully, particularly for those schools receiving a lot more students with special educational needs, and then we would want to bring the target down to one psychologist to four schools, as suggested by psychologists lately as well. So this is something in our mind. We are setting the policy to address.

Reporter: But if there is a shortage, how can you increase the ratio?

Secretary for Education: If you look at the universities, a couple of universities have increased their (intake) numbers, and instead of 20, it is actually 38 in alternate years. There will be more. So there is part one. Part two, there are a lot of practitioners already in the community, just that they are not attached to the Education Bureau's team. Some schools engage their own, and some would be providing service via the non-government organisations, and some would be in the private sector. So these are all the additional provisions on top of the one we have in the Education Bureau.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)

Ends/Saturday, March 12, 2016
Issued at HKT 12:12

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