SED visits students with special educational needs (with photos)
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Located at Nam Shan Chuen Road, Tai Hang Tung, the school provides special education services for Primary One to Secondary Six students with moderate intellectual disability and strives to offer them a variety of learning opportunities and a suitable environment throughout their school life. On the school campus, Mr Yeung joined students for some learning activities, such as STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education, physical education, visual arts and baking classes, followed by a meeting with teaching staff and parents for exchanges. He also visited the boarding section of the school at Chuk Yuen North Estate to learn more about the boarding service and related facilities.
Mr Yeung said, "Students with SEN have different characteristics and development needs, and thus it is of paramount importance for schools to teach individual students based on their own ability and help them unleash their unique potential. We appreciate the efforts made by all teachers and, in recent years, the Government has taken the initiative to allocate more resources to support related work.
"For special schools, this year's Policy Address suggested, starting from the 2020/21 school year, enhancing the staff establishment of the boarding sections of special schools so that boarding students could receive better services. The improvement will include providing an additional cash grant to each boarding section for employing personal care workers or hiring related services; upgrading the ranks of Warden and Assistant Warden of boarding sections with an approved capacity of 40 or above and increasing the numbers of Assistant Warden and Houseparent-in-charge accordingly; and improving the weekend and Sunday manning ratios.
"As for public-sector ordinary primary and secondary schools, the Policy Address suggested adopting a three-tier intervention model with proven effectiveness to help students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) develop emotional regulation, social communication and adaptive learning skills. We will also support non-governmental organisation-school collaboration in offering small-group training on social adaptive skills. It is expected to benefit a total of about 10 000 students with ASD."
The above-mentioned Policy Address initiatives will require an additional annual expenditure of about $130 million.
Mr Yeung said that education is the most meaningful investment in the future and the current-term Government has made a steadfast commitment by so far allocating an additional recurrent expenditure of $10 billion on education. The future development of Hong Kong depends a lot on the nurturing of talent, which also requires the professionalism of education workers, the support of school stakeholders and the efforts of all students. The Government will continue to strive to provide the necessary support.
Ends/Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Issued at HKT 17:10
Issued at HKT 17:10
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