Review of the Medium of Instruction (MOI) and SSPA

To enable students to learn better in most subjects and to develop an enquiring mind and cultivate critical thinking, the Government has adopted Chinese as the medium of instruction (CMI) for junior secondary classes from the 1998–99 school year onwards. Only 112 secondary schools that have satisfied the requirements in terms of student ability, teacher capability and language learning-support strategies and programmes are allowed to use English as the medium of instruction (EMI).

    Researches and studies have repeatedly confirmed that mother-tongue teaching has positive effects on students' learning. In September 2000, the Government accepted the recommendation of the Working Group on MOI to continue with the MOI policy until August 2004. The long-term arrangement thereafter will be reviewed in parallel with the review of the Secondary School Places Allocation (SSPA) mechanism to be conducted by the Education Commission (EC) in 2003–04.

    The EC has put forward recommendations to reform the SSPA system with a long-term vision that: i) the nine-year basic education will be a coherent learning experience without requiring students to take any high-stake public examinations and ii) the labelling effect of the allocation bands on schools and pupils will be removed progressively. With effect from the 2000–01 school year, the Academic Aptitude Test (AAT) was abolished and an interim SSPA mechanism was introduced. The interim mechanism basically retains the various elements in the old SSPA system, except with the abolition of the AAT and the reduction of student bands from five to three. A review on the interim SSPA mechanism will be conducted in 2003 with a view to putting the permanent SSPA mechanism in place in 2005.

    In order to provide knowledge-based support for the upcoming review of the MOI policy and SSPA mechanism, the Government has commissioned, and is conducting in-house, a number of educational researches and associated studies to evaluate the implementation of the MOI policy adopted in secondary schools since 1998 and analyse the impact of the interim SSPA mechanism. The findings collected will be used as reference for the parallel reviews of the long-term arrangement of the MOI policy and the SSPA mechanism in 2003.

Review of Training and Retraining

There is a need for a more strategic, responsive and coordinated approach to manpower planning and development so as to develop a skilled and adaptable workforce that can meet the changing demands of the economy. To this end, the Manpower Development Committee was established in October to advise the Government on manpower needs and the promotion and regulation of the vocational, post-secondary and continuing education sectors. One of Manpower Development Committee's tasks is to review and rationalise the existing training and retraining programmes to ensure more cost-effective use of resources.

Professional Development for Teachers

A new term of membership of the Advisory Committee on Teacher Education and Qualifications began on June 1. Since then, the Advisory Committee has continued to deliberate on specific teacher education and development issues. These include a review of initial teacher education, the provision of mentoring support for beginning teachers, the development of a professional development framework and the continuing professional development of teachers. Open and continual dialogues with stakeholders will be maintained in mapping out the policy framework to increase community ownership and support in the change process.