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Following is a question by the Hon Cheung Man-kwong and a written reply by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Joseph W P Wong in the Legislative Council today (April 21), on behalf of the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Professor Arthur K C Li, who is on leave:
Question:
All English/Putonghua teachers in government, subsidised, Direct Subsidy Scheme, and private primary, secondary and special schools in Hong Kong are required to have attained the language proficiency requirement (LPR) for teachers by August 31, 2006. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) among the English/Putonghua teachers in these schools in the current school year, of the respective numbers of teachers who;
(i) are exempted from LPR;
(ii) have scored a pass or above in the Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers (LPAT);
(iii) took LPAT held in March this year;
(iv) have completed LPAT training courses;
(v) are attending LPAT training courses;
(vi) are attending relevant degree courses in order to be granted exemption;
(vii) have enrolled in the LPAT training courses which have not yet commenced; and
(viii) have enrolled in the relevant degree courses which have not yet commenced;
(b) of the number of English/Putonghua teachers that these schools will need in the next three school years;
(c) whether it has evaluated the number of English/Putonghua teachers who will not have attained the LPR after the above-mentioned deadline, if it has, of the method and outcome of the evaluation; and
(d) if the evaluation outcome indicates that there will be teachers who will not have attained LPR by then, how the authorities will handle these teachers and resolve the problem of inadequate English/Putonghua teachers who have attained LPR?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) Among the English/Putonghua teachers in the schools referred to in the question, in the current school year -
(i) number of teachers exempted from language proficiency requirement (LPR)
English Teachers Putonghua Teachers
---------------- ------------------
Primary 906 578
Secondary 2,181 403
Total 3,087 981
(ii) number of teachers who have got a pass or above in all papers of the Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers (LPAT) (LPR met) or in some papers of the LPAT (in progress)
English Teachers Putonghua Teachers
---------------- ------------------
Primary
LPR met 559 611
In progress 2,887 1,441
Secondary
LPR met 561 281
In progress 1,057 607
Total
LPR met 1,120 892
In progress 3,944 2,048
(iii) number of candidates who took the LPAT in March this year
English 4,810 (number claimed to be teachers = 3,540)
Putonghua 2,240 (number claimed to be teachers = 1,590)
(iv) number of teachers having completed the authorized Language Proficiency Training Courses
English Teachers Putonghua Teachers
---------------- ------------------
LPR met 1,467 1,168
(all modules
completed)
In Progress 2,938 761
(some modules
completed)
Total 4,405 1,929
(v) & (vii) From September 2003 up to now, there are 7,506 and 7,005 counts of teachers enrolled in different modules of the English and Putonghua Language Proficiency Training Courses respectively. Since these training courses are mostly short courses of different duration and the number of teachers attending and the number of teachers who have not yet commenced are continuously changing, we do not have the breakdown for these two figures.
(vi) & (viii) The Education and Manpower Bureau does not have the required figures.
(b) Estimated number of English/Putonghua teachers required in the next three years -
Primary Secondary
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2003/04 school year
English 5,489 6,032
Putonghua 1,372 2,262
2004/05 school year
English 5,344 6,097
Putonghua 1,336 2,286
2005/06 school year
English 5,150 6,191
Putonghua 1,287 2,322
(c) The number of teachers required in each school year, as shown in the table above, is estimated based on the projected school age population in that particular year. The number of English teachers required is calculated on the assumption that English lessons occupy 20% of the curriculum time. For Putonghua (PTH), the number of teachers required is calculated on the assumption that two PTH periods per week are allocated to primary classes and three PTH periods per week to secondary classes. An additional 20% of language teachers are included in the estimated number to allow flexible manpower deployment. As of March 2004, the number of English and Putonghua teachers who have attained the LPR is 4,980 and 1,957 respectively. The number of English and Putonghua teachers who have partially met the LPR is 5,773 and 2,858 respectively. As the enrolment in language proficiency training courses and the number of teachers taking the LPAT are on the increase, and some teachers would meet the LPR by exemption, it is estimated that there will be enough teachers meeting the LPR by the end of August 2006.
(d) Based on the situation described in (c), it is anticipated that there will be enough English/Putonghua teachers attaining the LPR by August 31, 2006. In the 2006/07 school year, English/Putonghua teachers who still cannot meet the LPR will not be eligible to teach these subjects. These teachers can be redeployed to teach other subjects.
Ends/Wednesday, April 21, 2004
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