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Following is a question by the Hon Audrey Eu and a written reply by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Professor Arthur K C Li, in the Legislative Council today (January 5):

Question:

Starting from the 2004/05 school year, new teachers recruited to teach Chinese and English language subjects in primary and secondary schools must have a Bachelor of Education degree in the relevant language subject or a first degree in the relevant language subject and qualifications of relevant teacher training. It has been reported that 86% of the serving language teachers in primary schools as well as 42% and 51% of the serving Chinese and English teachers in secondary schools have not yet acquired such qualifications. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) regarding the Professional Development Incentive Grant Scheme for Language Teachers launched last April to enhance the subject knowledge and pedagogical skills of language teachers, whether it has assessed the effectiveness of the Scheme; if it has, of the assessment results; if not, the reasons for that; and

(b) of the further measures to enhance the language proficiency of language teachers?

Reply:

Madam President,

In the Final Report of Language Education Review published in June 2003, the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR) pointed out that language teachers should be proficient in the language they teach, well grounded in subject knowledge and acquainted with the latest theories and practices in language teaching and learning so as to ensure that they are adequately prepared for their work. Therefore, SCOLAR recommended and the Government agreed that starting from the 2004/05 school year, new language teachers should hold at least a Bachelor of Education (BEd) degree majoring in the relevant language subject, or both a first degree and a Postgraduate Diploma (or Certificate) in Education (PGDE/PCEd) majoring in the relevant language subject.

The Government also encourages serving language teachers, particularly those who have neither a degree nor any teacher training in the relevant language subject, to upgrade their qualifications and pursue continuing professional development. According to the 2003 Teacher Survey, the profile of academic qualifications of language teachers in primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong is set out in Table 1 (in terms of number of teachers and percentage):

It follows that at present 94.5% primary school Chinese Language teachers, 61.3% primary school English Language teachers, 86.8% secondary school Chinese Language teachers and 84.3% secondary school English Language teachers fully or partially meet the qualifications requirements that SCOLAR has recommended, accounting for 82% of all the serving language teachers.

To encourage more serving teachers to upgrade their qualifications, SCOLAR allocated $225 million from the Language Fund to set up the Professional Development Incentive Grant Scheme for Language Teachers (the Scheme) last year to assist serving language teachers in paying tuition fee. Under the Scheme, each successful applicant may be reimbursed, upon completion of an approved programme for qualification upgrading, 50% of the tuition fee, up to a maximum of $30 000. The Scheme commenced in April 2004. As at December 21, 2004, SCOLAR has already received 3949 applications of which 3619 have been approved. The grant earmarked amounts to approximately $186 million. Qualifications of language teachers who have successfully applied for the Scheme are set out in Table 2.

Meanwhile, to help teachers with a degree not majoring in the relevant language subject to acquire the subject knowledge in the language they teach, six local tertiary institutions have offered eight approved postgraduate programmes in subject knowledge for English Language teachers and seven local tertiary institutions have offered seven approved postgraduate programmes in subject knowledge for Chinese Language teachers. As at November 2004, the programmes for English and the ones for Chinese have received about 1100 and 1350 applications from teachers respectively.

The Scheme has received about 4000 applications in only a few months and the above programmes have commenced with a high enrolment rate, indicating that serving teachers are strongly committed to their professional development. We expect that these teachers will complete the programmes in the coming year or in the next few years and will be able to enhance their subject knowledge and pedagogy in the language they teach and, thus, help improve the quality of teaching. We also expect that more serving teachers will apply for assistance under the Scheme so as to undertake relevant programmes. As such, we consider that the Scheme and the above-mentioned programmes have initially achieved the aim of encouraging more serving teachers to upgrade their qualifications and pursue continuing professional development.

SCOLAR will review the way forward for the Scheme sometime mid-2005 and decide whether additional resources should be allocated to encourage more eligible serving language teachers to undertake relevant programmes. We shall also continue to discuss with local teacher education institutions matters such as whether more places should be provided for teacher training.

Ends/Wednesday, January 5, 2005

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